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One Sheet iconic original 1971 Broadway promotional poster for Stephen Sondheim’s musical Follies, designed by legendary graphic artist David Edward Byrd. Blending Art Nouveau silhouettes with a vibrant, psychedelic color palette, the image captures a decaying, beautifully colored showroom bust of a showgirl with stylized, flowing hair.The prominent crack running down the face of the figure serves as a vital thematic metaphor for the "end of an era," representing the decay of youth, the fading glamour of the old showgirls, and the literal crumbling of the theater. Byrd noted that his inspiration for this visual came from a famous Life Magazine photograph of silent film star Gloria Swanson standing amid the rubble of the newly demolished Roxy Theatre in New York. The face itself was closely modeled after a portrait of Marlene Dietrich in the film Shanghai Express. This specific version leaves the large central space blank, a format commonly distributed to galleries like the Triton Gallery or used for adding theater billing, credits, and performance dates below the Winter Garden Theatre imprint. |
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