Through distortion of scale and angle and a dramatic simplification of form and color, Biró created an image of a delivery boy leaping toward the viewer, scattering Pauker stationery products in his haste. Such posters vividly communicate a sense of the congestion and frenetic pace of business in Budapest before World War I. This thriving metropolis of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was developing as a center of modern poster design before 1919, and Biró was one of Hungary’s best-known graphic artists for commercial as well as political commissions. Alluding to his bold use of color, the German magazine Das Plakat ("The Poster") described Biró’s visual language as throbbing with "the syncopated rhythms of the Hungarian folk songs."
Gallery label from Seeing Red: Hungarian Revolutionary Posters, 1919, February 2–August 1, 2011.
