Timberline Lodge Ore Vintage Skiing Poster
There’s no artist signature on this stunning reproduction 1937 Timberline Lodge Skiing Poster. However, looking at the bright, bold use of colour, the images artistic style and the fact that the poster advertises Splitkein Flexible Flyer Skis, if it’s not by the renowned poster artist Sascha Maurer, then maybe we have a copycat artist on our hands.
Whoever it was that was responsible for the poster’s illustration, they have made a great job! They have created a dynamic image of a skier captured in mid-flight, acrobatically soaring through the air, seemingly defying gravity. A cloud of snow is seen billowing up behind the jumper, creating a mirror image of the hill he just jumped off. The artwork portrays the skier showing off his skills at the top of Mount Hood, and has featured the majestic mountain peaks jutting out of the deep snowy landscape at the top of the world! The white snow and the reds and blacks of the skier contrast vividly against the clear blue sky. The poster was produced to promote the Timberline Ski resort but it was done in conjunction with the American manufacturer of Splitkein Ski’s. For the poster the artist has portrayed the skier in a pair of Splitkein Ostbye skis and included the company logo in the top left hand corner.
It’s a stunning image that makes a great poster design and original copies of this poster are rare and highly sought-after, with copies selling for upwards of £3,500.
The Timberline Lodge in Portland, Oregon
The Timberline Lodge is nestled a few thousand feet beneath the rugged 11,249 foot peak of Oregon’s Mount Hood. It is a beautiful alpine mountain lodge located in Clackamas County, Oregon. It was constructed in the 1930s by the Works Progress Administration and was furnished by local artisans using traditional techniques and materials. The four-story building measures around 40,000 square feet and contains 70 guest rooms.
The idea of building an alpine lodge on the slopes of Mount Hood had been touted for many years. Probably, since the Cloud Cap Inn was constructed on the East side of the forest in 1889. Over the next four decades, Portland’s population increased and so did recreation on the mountain. In 1925, the Mt. Hood Loop Highway was opened, giving the public greater access to the area. This made it possible for more people to experience the beauty of the mountain. With its close proximity to Portland and its abundance of recreational activities the area was becoming a popular destination. The idea of building the lodge was revisited.
When the Great Depression hit the United States in the 1930s, it had a profound impact on the state of Oregon. The City of Portland was one of the hardest-hit areas, with unemployment reaching nearly 30%. In response to the crisis, President Franklin Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a federal relief agency that provided millions of Americans with much-needed jobs.
Among those appointed to lead the WPA in Oregon was Emerson J. Griffith. He obtained funding from the WPA for $246,893 (approximately $4.3 million by today’s standards) with additional funding from the Mt. Hood Development Association and road improvement and building from the U.S. Forest Service. Griffith quickly got to work on the building of Timberline Lodge.
According to the Timberline Lodge website, “The first phase of the lodge was to frame and roof the lodge in four months’ time. Considering the altitude of 6,000 feet, the short summer season, and the harsh alpine climate, this project was a challenge. Daily, there could be between 100 and 470 workers onsite at a time. The WPA program aimed to employ and train as many people as possible. As a Federal Arts Project and a Master/Apprentice Program, an additional purpose of the Lodge project was to purposely pair skilled artists and craftspeople with unskilled workers so as to teach them traditional skills in arts, crafts, and construction trades. Wages were 90 cents an hour for building trade laborers, 75 cents an hour for common laborers, and 55 cents an hour for unskilled laborers. By today’s standards, that would be $15.36, $13.00, and $9.54 an hour, respectively.”
Today the Timberline Lodge is a popular destination with tourists and skiing enthusiasts. It’s located near the top of an 11,245-foot volcano, Mt. Hood, the tallest mountain in Oregon. This allows the resort to boast of having 4,540 vertical feet, more than anybody else in the United States. Furthermore, it is the only ski area in U.S. open ten months of the year. Timberline Lodge is a popular tourist attraction that draws two million visitors annually including Stephen King fanatics!.
The Overlook Hotel in The Shining
Stephen King fans will almost certainly be aware that the Timberline Lodge in Oregon was used for the exterior views of the fictional Overlook Hill in Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of Stephen King’s 1977 novel The Shining.
The setting and characters are influenced by King’s personal experiences, including both his visit to The Stanley Hotel in 1974 and his struggle with alcoholism. As the Timberline Lodge website explains, “The 1980 movie “The Shining” was based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, which was inspired by The Stanley Hotel in Colorado. Several of the exterior shots in the film which purport to show the lodge, such as those of the hedge maze and loading dock, were taken at Elstree Studios in England, using a mock-up of the south face of the lodge. There is no hedge maze (and hardly any level ground) at the Timberline Lodge. All interior scenes were shot at Elstree Studios as well, and not at Timberline Lodge.’
Kubrick was asked not to depict Room 217 (featured in the book) in The Shining, because future guests at the Lodge might be afraid to stay there. So a nonexistent room, Room 237, was substituted in the film. Curiously, and somewhat ironically, Room 217 is requested more often than any other room at Timberline.
The Shining isn’t the only appearance for the Lodge in film. Other feature films shot at or around Timberline Lodge include Jingle Belles (1941),Bend of the River, All the Young Men, Lost Horizon, Hear No Evil and Wild.
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.
