Splitkein James Campion Poster, New Hampshire.
Splitkein Skis Flexible Flyer Poster.
This is a high-quality reproduction print of a poster created by the German-born artist Sascha Maurer in 1937. The poster features a young woman in the snow-covered landscape of New Hampshire. She is grinning from ear to ear, proudly showing off her new laminated Splitkein Skis. It’s no wonder she’s happy, at the time these skis were extremely expensive, and often only afforded by the well to do. Slitkein skis were first manufactured and sold in 1932. They were the first successful three-layer laminated skis. Strangely, the three-layer technique was invented by two individuals, completely independently of each other. In Seattle in America, they were invented by George Aaland at the same time as they were been created by Bjørn Ullevoldsaeter in Norway. And, bizarrely, both had named their skis Splitkein. Both gentlemen had success with their products.
The poster depicts a fashionable young skier wearing a dark red, hooded skiing jacket and blue trousers. This type of outfit was, along with Shetland sweaters, Challis ties, Harris Tweed sportcoats, Gant shirts, and Dartmouth College gear, highly fashionable skiing attire in the 1930s amongst the Ivy League college fraternity of New Hampshire. And the place to buy it was Hanover’s prominent menswear retail establishment’ James Campion, located adjacent to the Main Street coffee shop entrance of the Hanover Inn.
Who is Sascha Maurer
Sascha Maurer was an American artist who was born in Germany in 1897. He is even thought to have descended from Russian royalty. He studied at the School of Applied Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts, both in Munich and later spent time studying with another famous German poster artist of the time Ludwig Hohlwein. Maurer was clearly influenced by Hohlwein’s “plakatstil” poster style that eliminated the ornamentation and embellishments of the Art Nouveau movement that was popular in mid 19th and early 20th century poster design.
Maurer served in the German Navy during World War I, after which he moved to Brazil, where he learned the lithographic printing process. In 1925, he emigrated to the US to work as a commercial artist where he began to create posters for the New Haven Railroad and for ski resorts including New England, Lake Placid, New Hampshire, Kandahar Lodge, Crawford Notch and New Haven.
Maurer is now a famed poster designer, whose remarkable ski posters are highly collectible and if original, very expensive. For example, at the time of listing (2021) a copy of this poster was available for sale online with a guide price of almost £2,500.
Our posters are carefully and professionally created from vintage originals. Whilst great care is taken in the production of these posters, we also try to maintain a vintage feel, so there may be small imperfections, fold marks, scuffs, tears, or marks that were part of the original poster master. If these do appear they should be visible on the larger views of the item on this listing. The originals of many of the posters we offer can cost many thousands of pounds, so whilst these posters look great, especially framed and mounted on a wall, they are intended as fun, affordable reproductions and not intended fine art prints.
The 50x70cm version has been specially produced to be used in conjunction with Ikea’s 50x70cm Ribba picture frame which currently retails for around £15. So you can bag a bargain of print and frame for a great price.
