Peru of the Incas

Year: circa 1938
Artist: Paul George Lawler
Size: 42 x 28
Method: Lithograph
 
Notable sales:
Peru of the Incas version
Potter & Potter Auctions, Jan 2022, $2,200 (B- condition, repaired tears, inpaining on central fold lines)
From Potter's: "LAWLER, Paul George. Peru of the Incas / Pan American. 1938. Airline poster depicts men looking up at a Pan Am Douglas DC-3 flying over the Andes.
 
Skyway to Inca Land version
Swann Auction Galleries, Mar 2023, $1,900
From Swann's: One in a series of enticing destination posters designed by Lawler, depicting the range of Pan Am's routes, and illustrating their aircraft; here a Panagra DC-2 flies over Peru's famed Machu Picchu. "By the early 1930s Pan American Airways was expanding at an aggressive pace that would eventually make it the world's dominant international airline. It blanketed Central and South America with a network of air routes to serve the considerable business interests of U.S. multinational companies in the southern Hemisphere with a mixed fleet of flying boats and land planes" (Airways p. 48). Pan Am p. 63 (var), Airways p. 54, Airlines p. 7.
 
Lawler designed a series of posters for Pan Am capturing the exotic adventure and glamour of air travel during the "golden age." Several posters from this series stand as poster icons that capture the first wave of destination tourism. Rio de Janeiro and Peru's Machu Pichu in South America, Hawaii and the South Seas across the Pacific and Wings to Europe / America are a few of the most iconic and valuable of these images. Posters in this series are very rare and hard to find in good condition.
 
Some of Lawler's images were reused for additional poster printings with slightly modified text.