Yaneff.com

Full size sold for $ 27,600 US Poster Auctions International, N.Y. May 2010 

"This poster is a tribute to Toulouse-Lautrec's work, with elements of Divan Japonais  the elegant couple looking down at a performer on stage, a nod to Jane Avril, with the high-leg kicking can-can dancer, and to Moulin Rouge, in the people seen in silhouette. Unlike Toulouse-Lautrec, here the typography flows through the image like the performer." (Encyclopedie de l'Affiche p. 231.)

"Deutsches Theater: There is a delicacy of expression on the faces of both the viewer and the dancer that elevates this extraordinary design far beyond the standard theatrical poster. This gifted German artist could be one of the poster collector’s favorites, if only there were some posters of his to collect. He did only a few, and all of those, printed in very small quantities, are so rare that most poster enthusiasts never come across them. A cultured, sophisticated painter, Schnackenberg did most of his poster work for acquaintances in Munich theatrical circles. His designs are a quaint amalgam of caricature and fantasy which he himself called “suggestive dreams.” With an unerring instinct for color, and an exquisitely refined taste of subtle irony, he created a body of work that is uniquely individualistic–small but choice." (Rennert)

Schnackenberg in his Studio with model

Walter Schnackenberg was one of Germany’s most famous poster designers between the world wars. Together with Ludwig Hohlwein, Hans Rudi Erdt, Josef Fenneker and Lucian Bernhard he ranks among the top. His output was very limited but of a constant high quality, which earned him the name Germany’s Toulouse-Lautrec.
"Schnackenberg studied with Franz von Stück at the academy in Munich, and through his travels was exposed to the work of Toulouse-Lautrec in Paris. The two artists shared a passion for depicting nightlife, cabarets and performers, yet Schnackenberg's theatrical vision was more attuned to the prevailing German mood than that of fin-de-siècle Paris. His posters are an incarnation of the extravagance, decadence and morbidity at the center of Weimar-era indulgences. Similar to Toulouse-Lautrec, Schnackenberg left behind a visual gallery of the demimonde of Munich's nightlife, filled with peculiar performers and dancers. Schnackenberg also worked extensively on theatrical and costume design. (Swann)
"Born in Bad Lauterburg in 1880, Walter Schnackenberg found his vocation as a draughtsman and painter while still very young. At 19 he went to Munich, where he at first attended Heinrich Knirr's painting school before going on to study at the Franz von Stuck Academy. Drawing was Schnackenberg's strong point. His lively imagination made him particularly good at caricature. He drew for the celebrated magazines "Jugend" and "Simplizissimus". His themes were theatre and the comic muse." (50watts.com)
Schnackenberg: Kostüme / Plakate und Dekorationen.
Munich: Musarion, 1922 Second Edition.
Introductory text by Oskar Bie. An excellent compendium of Schnackenberg's posters, costumes and stage designs. The plates in this book are more in keeping with the Maitres de l'Affiche images, in that they were pulled by Oskar Consee (Schnackenberg's exclusive printer), and were surely done under the artist's supervision, with rich inking on high-quality paper.