Fifteen original illustrations

(Bern, Switzerland, 1974. Scapa (a.k.a. Ted Schaap). Fifteen original illustrations of perhaps gouache, each on a separate sheet of heavy paper. Mainly concerned with the meteoric rise of computing, and particularly that of IBM, Schaap's illustrations depict with snide humor the new computer worker, the techno-bureaucrat, at work pinning (literally) IBM all over the globe, sitting in traffic, dictating to his secretary the way he might write computer code, and still yet relying on paper. The illustrations apparently never reached publication, though their thematic link to the 1974 portfolio Schaap produced through his publishing firm, Benteli, suggests that Schaap was engaged in some sort of cohesive project on IBM and computing. It is possible that he had IBM in mind as the ultimate outlet for the work—he contributed freelance designs to Swatch, among other corporations—though it is unclear whether the company would have been game for Schaap's tongue-in-cheek style. Regardless, the illustrations encapsulate a period and perspective of rapid technological progress, an artist's view of the societal reverberations of commercial prosperity. Sheets sequenced by numbers in top left corners. Margins of sheets somewhat toned, though irregularly, likewise trace creasing and rubbing, else a near fine example of an artist's treatment of an unusual but timely subject, with echoes of the later dot-com boom and the arrival of AI at scale.