In Miscellaneous Milwaukee, we take a stroll through the aisles of Antiques On Pierce and unearth curious, strange, or valuable Milwaukee artifacts.
ITEM: CHANNEL 10 AUCTION POSTER
YEAR: 1985
PRICE: $35 (FIRM)
Everyone loves the Milwaukee PBS Great TV Auction. It’s weird. It’s wonderful. It’s usually filled with paintings of Brett Favre and/or Aaron Rodgers. Looking to support your local public television station via an accident-prone live broadcast and maybe pick up a signed DVD copy of Around The Corner With John McGivern along the way? Simply buckle up for some overbids and tune in every spring. This spring, from April 26 through May 5, the Auction will celebrate its 51st year.
But let’s talk about its 17th. In 1985, the same year Milwaukee PBS would begin broadcasting in stereo, the Auction promoted itself with a lovely poster designed and illustrated by Milwaukee artist Steve Slaske. Well-known for his drawings of city skylines and other urban scenes, Slaske gave the ’85 Auction an undeniable sheen of ’80s class:
The poster depicts the corner of Juneau and Prospect, immediately across from Juneau Park. On the left, the George P. Miller house, built in 1885, located at 1060 E. Juneau Ave.; on the right, the Judge Jason Downer house, built in 1874, located at 1201 N. Prospect Ave. The corner appears identical today, sans the bustling crowd:
Slaske now lives and works in Chicago and runs Skyline City Prints. Here’s a 2014 PBS profile on the artist. (Slaske talks about the Miller/Downer drawing at the 1:14 mark.)
As for that $35 price tag, don’t bother haggling. The seller won’t budge on this beaut.
