The Road to Mandalay
Batiste Madalena
American, 1902–1988
1926
A hand-painted cinema poster created to sell the 1926 Lon Chaney film The Road to Mandalay by evoking its romantic, exotic drama.
At first glance the cropped, theatrical close-up of Chaney and a woman—pale faces and gloved hands against a vibrating blue field—strikes with flattened color, expressive brushwork, and bold, theatrical lettering.
It illustrates 1920s film publicity’s fusion of painterly modernism and star imagery, using exoticized melodrama to shape audience expectations and the visual language of movie advertising.
Medium
Poster
Classification
Department
Credit
Purchase from the Katten Family
Accession
F2016.105
Palette
Exhibitions
