While browsing a posters forum this week we found a discussion about this highly significant sale of a cinema poster that took place at a relatively obscure auctioneers in Texas. It indicates that a cinema poster for Fritz Lang’s Metropolis sold at auction on the 18th February 2021 for a hammer price of $1.13m USD. This makes this the most expensive cinema poster to ever sell at an auction. More significantly, it is also the first individual cinema poster to sell at auction for more than $1 million USD.
Surprisingly there has been little media coverage of the sale for a combination of reasons. Firstly, the sale happened less than a week ago and the entertainment media haven’t cottoned on to it. In a world of instant news, this might seem surprising. However, the sale was made by an auctioneer that appears to specialise in the sale of goods ceased by the US Federal Government. They are unlikely to have a PR department that would have published a press release, as would likely have happened had the poster been sold by one of the ‘Fine Art’ auctions house.
So, what of the poster itself? Simply put it is an art deco masterpiece used to publicise Fritz Lang’s first film. The poster measures 81″ x 36.5″ and was printed black and white using lithograph in 1926. It is widely agreed that 4 copies survive. One of them is housed in the New York Museum of Modern Art and another is thought to be owned by Leonardo DiCaprio. The copy sold this week was seized from a ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ producer for his role in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal. How could anyone say the world of cinema posters isn’t full of intrigue and excitement?
