Poster, Chicago, Naissance d’une métropole [Birth of a metropolis] 1872–1922, 1987

The right half of an archival 1913 photograph of Chicago by J.W. Taylor, from the collection of The Art Institute of Chicago’s Burnham Library, is tipped to the left to suggest the receding streets of the city. In a contrasting movement, the word “Chicago,” in the Musee d’Orsay’s official Waldbaum font and aligned with the architecture, begins in the distance and looms forward wrapping around the corner of the skyscraper-filled street, ending with a large “O,” perhaps alluding to the “O” of Orsay.