The S.S. Ranchi began yearly cruises to Norway shortly after her launch in 1925. Silas is best remembered as a painter, but he also designed posters for British railway companies and several shipping lines. Here, on the first class sports deck behind the second funnel, well dressed cruisers are watching a game of “Deck Tennis,” a hybrid of volleyball and tennis, played with a rubber ring.
Approved by the Cassandre family, the 1932 vintage poster for the Coupe Davis was released again in 1980.
Named after the French aviator Roland Garros, this is the premier clay court tennis championship event in the world and the second of four annual Grand Slam tournaments; the other three being the Australian Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. Roland Garros is the only Grand Slam event held on clay.
The British firm Slazenger was founded in 1881 when brothers Ralph and Albert Slazenger moved their rainwear business from Manchester to London in an effort to find new products to maintain their business in the summer months. They decided to manufacture rackets and balls for the new game “Sphairistike” invented a few years earlier by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield.
Major Wingfield’s new game has become tennis, one of the world’s most international sports, and Slazenger’s has grown from a family business to an international organization selling sporting goods in almost every country in the world.
The company’s first major breakthrough in the tennis market was the adoption of their tennis balls and equipment for the Wimbledon Championship in 1902, an honor that they have guarded zealously ever since. Slazenger is now moving into its second century as Wimbledon’s official supplier, one of the longest sponsorship associations in sporting history. This year, 52,000 tennis balls will be supplied to the tournament. Each ball will be tested for weight, bounce and compression.
Certainly, there’s the curative air and relaxation. Of course there’s fine dining and orchestra. There’s even a solarium, if you’re in to that sort of thing. But the feature that artist Serre brings to the fore for Aubrac’s Royal Hotel are their apparently-clay courts, with a match in full swing- the 1,400 meter altitude (4,593 ft) posing no low-oxygen obstacle to these two serious competitors. Aubrac is a town in the southern Massif Central of France, with that name appropriately applied to the surrounding region, as well. The landscape straddles three departements– Aveyron being one of them. Situated on a plateau, which is a largely eroded Paleocene volcano, Aubrac is perched at the highest altitude of the region, which averages an elevation of 1,000 meters (3,200 ft). A gorgeous poster in excellent condition.
