«Kunsthaus Zürich 1938»: LC's first original color lithograph, hand-signed

Only recently made available, the best of both worlds: The first original color lithograph by Le Corbusier was a poster he designed for his 1938 exhibition «Œuvre Plastique» at the Kunsthaus Zürich (100×71 cm); only 100 copies were printed—and this one is even hand-signed by LC, dated, and annotated «Zurich, January 1938.».

The original poster promoted Le Corbusier’s first-ever solo exhibition. He began exhibiting his art in the early 1920s, when his seminal work *Vers une architecture* was published. Sigfried Giedion, one of the Swiss pioneers of modernism, had to persuade him to exhibit the results of his morning work—in the early hours, LC was an artist in his private studio; in the afternoon, he was the architect and urban planner at 35 Rue de Sèvres.

After he agreed to the show, he became quite hopeful and confident, as he wrote to his mother: «I expect that from now on people will recognize me not only as an architect but as a painter as well.» © FLC/2018, ProLitteris, Zurich