"Be Nonchalant, Light a Murad," c.1927 Advertising Poster. Restored by Elliott Best

Glamour, Attitude and the Modern Woman

Against a glowing field of acid yellow and shadowed green, a woman in a sweeping white hat rests her head lightly against one hand. She wears a black evening dress, long earrings and a gold necklace, but it is her expression that dominates the poster. Her gaze is cool and appraising, her lips composed and her posture deliberately relaxed. She does not smile for the viewer or attempt to make herself agreeable. Created during the 1920s for Murad cigarettes, this striking advertisement transformed a commercial slogan into a complete female persona: independent, fashionable and entirely unapologetic.

The Artist: Rolf Armstrong

The poster is attributed to Rolf Armstrong, 1889–1960, one of the most influential American glamour illustrators of the twentieth century. Armstrong became celebrated for his magazine covers, calendar art and advertising images of fashionable women. His characteristic use of pastel, saturated colour and carefully modelled faces helped establish the visual language of the modern glamour portrait. The Illustration History organization describes him as an artist renowned for bold colour and idealized female subjects, while auction records specifically identify this Murad design as his work.

The precise publication year has not been firmly established in the surviving auction documentation. Major catalogues date the poster broadly to the 1920s, and the campaign was certainly active by 1927. A Murad advertisement carrying the same slogan appeared in a November 1927 issue of The Elks Magazine, while the campaign continued through the end of the decade.

The Modern Woman as Advertising Icon

During the 1920s, advertisers increasingly presented women as independent consumers rather than simply as wives or domestic figures. Here, the subject occupies the entire composition. There is no man beside her and no social setting needed to explain her presence. Her short dark hair, sleeveless evening dress, dramatic hat and direct gaze associate her with the decade’s image of the urban modern woman. Yet the advertisement’s apparent liberation came with a commercial motive to make smoking appear sophisticated and cool. It is both an exceptional work of commercial art and evidence of how skilfully advertisers attached dangerous products to desirable ideas about freedom and identity.

Colour, Contrast and Controlled Drama

Armstrong’s palette is wonderfully economical. The luminous yellow background creates instant visibility, while the woman’s black dress forms a deep visual anchor across the lower half of the composition. Her pale hat and skin emerge dramatically between those two extremes. Small details carry extraordinary weight: the dark feather at her shoulder, the gold jewellery, her muted red lips and the tiny illustrated cigarette package near the bottom. Even the typography participates in the drama. The enormous word MURAD rises diagonally across the black dress in cream letters outlined with red, giving the brand name the force of a theatrical title.

American Art Deco with a European Accent

The poster possesses many qualities associated with European Art Deco: simplified geometry, fashionable elegance, dramatic colour blocking and a woman who embodies modern urban life. However, this particular design was fundamentally American commercial art. Murad was produced by the New York-based P. Lorillard Tobacco Company, and Armstrong built his career through American magazines, calendars and national advertising.

The Elliott Best Restoration Signature™

Our restoration revives the poster’s extraordinary contrast and emotional presence while preserving the elegance of Armstrong’s original illustration. The luminous yellow background, deep black gown, feather details and warm skin tones have been carefully balanced. The typography, jewellery and facial features have been clarified without flattening the soft pastel character that gives the image its distinctive atmosphere. The restored result allows both the artistry and the persuasive power of the original advertisement to be examined anew.

Curator’s Note: We love her because she refuses to charm us, she just is. Her hat is fabulous, the gown is dramatic and the colour is impossible to ignore. But the true masterpiece is her expression. She looks out from the 1920s with the calm assurance of someone who knows exactly who she is. The advertisement tells her to be nonchalant, but she was clearly there already.