Misfits
Artist
Isolde Baumgart
Germany, 1935 - 2011
Date1972
Dimensions33 x 23 in. (83.8 x 58.4 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LinePoster House Permanent Collection
Object numberPH.906
DescriptionThis is another poster advertising an American film released in Germany by the Walter Kirchner film-distribution company in Göttingen, in this case director John Huston’s 1961 drama The Misfits. The screenplay was written by the distinguished playwright Arthur Miller expressly for his wife, Marilyn Monroe, who starred in the film as an ex-stripper who falls in love with aging cowboy Clark Gable (hence the warning on this poster that the film is “not socially acceptable”). The publicity for the film was complicated by the fact that the marriage of Monroe and Miller disintegrated during the production and Gable died shortly after filming ended. Here, however, Isolde Baumgart, another one of the great designers who worked under Hans Hillmann at Walter Kirchner, bases the composition on two film stills showing the three stars in all their glory. The company’s innovative posters reflect the unusual artistic freedom given to the design team, which established a new standard in German poster design that had not been seen there since the 1920s.On View
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