GUEST: Well, it's by an artist by the name of Lucian Bernhard. When I graduated art school-- I'm from Manhattan-- I worked for his son Carl Bernhard. Towards the end of working for him, I had done some personal favors for Lucian Bernhard, and who wanted to pay me monetarily, and I did not want to accept that. In turn, he said, "Here, take this portfolio of things and enjoy." He also wanted to give me some of his paintings, and foolishly, I, I did not accept that, but I accepted this.
APPRAISER: These are the original artworks. His influence on graphic design and on typography is, is almost undefinable. He personally designed 36 different typefaces.
GUEST: I didn't know that.
APPRAISER: Lucian Bernhard began his poster career in Germany. He created something called the object poster, where, when he was making an advertisement, he chose only to illustrate that object. And in fact, we have a copy of his first object poster. It's for Priester matches, this is...
GUEST: That's his first?
APPRAISER: It's his first object poster, done in 1906.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: And it seems so obvious to us that on an advertisement for matches, you illustrate the matches. But in 1906, which was at the heart of the Art Nouveau movement, to do something so simply, so plainly, so without ornament, was absolutely unheard-of and revolutionary. In 1923, he came to America, and you began working for his son in what year?
GUEST: In the '60s, when I graduated art school.
APPRAISER: And he gave you these original works of art, some of which are maquettes for posters.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: They're the studies for posters. We have here Excelsior Tires.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: Which is a gouache. You can see his signature in the lower left-hand corner. We also have, close to you, a study for a poster for Bleichert Conveyors. Again, his signature is visible in the upper left-hand corner here. You also have a watercolor here for Manoli Cigarettes, which is another one of his big clients, and then we have... this would probably be from his German era, because it's a German company. Rahn Biscuits. Not only is it a gouache, but if you look very closely, you will see that it's also a collage, that he cut and pasted certain elements onto the background.
GUEST: I never noticed that.
APPRAISER: The top here of the coffee pitcher has been pasted on. His original artwork rarely comes on the market at all. His posters come on the market every now and again and sell for a fairly pricey sum, but the posters are obviously much larger. The worst-case scenario, an auction estimate for the group that I would be very comfortable thinking they would sell...
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: ...would be $15,000 to $20,000.
GUEST: Whoa! Okay.
APPRAISER: Now, that's the worst-case scenario. The best-case scenario, which is if they are as rare and as exciting and as important as I believe them to be, I can see $20,000 to $30,000. Now, when you said you made a mistake not taking his paintings, you don't realize what a big mistake you made.
GUEST: Now I do. (laughs)
