A New Collection of Summer Posters “Jeunesse au Plein Air”

Everybody’s just getting back into school mode, so naturally here at VEP we are dreaming of our next vacation! This charming series of posters was issued by the Federation of Secular Workers in France in 1951, encouraging parents to send their children to summer camp.  All of the posters in the series were designed by Herve Morvan, one of the post war poster artists.  Morvan also made posters for Air France, Billecart Champagne, Evian Water, and Bendix appliances.

Whether advocating a day out in the sunshine, 

or a trip to the park to feed the ducks, 

these posters make it clear that the “key” to a happy childhood, is a summer spent at camp! 

Is summer really over already?

This post was co-written by Emily Jackson, UC Berkeley Art History Student and Gallery Assistant
Edited by Elizabeth Norris, Owner, Vintage European Posters www.vepca.com

Vintage European Posters was established in 1997.
We are the West Coast’s Largest Dealer in Original Vintage Posters from France and the United States.
See us online anytime at www.vepca.com and at our Berkeley Showroom
OUTPOST
2201 Fourth Street, Tuesdays and Thursdays

As well as at pop up open weekends (sign our mailing list to receive updates about pop-ups)

This fall we will exhibit at the Pasadena Heritage’s Craftsman Weekend October 20-21

The Fall Hillsborough Antiques Show November 2-4

Motocyclettes Monet et Goyon

Gerard, Monet & Goyon, 1926

In 1926, the poster artist O.K. Gerard designed this beautiful poster for Monet & Goyon Motocylettes. It was a momentous year for Monet & Goyon, only two years after one of the founding partners Andre Goyon died of pneumonia, and the year that the company sold the record amount of machines – over 10,000! Unfortunately, this peak in sales was followed only several months later by the death of Joseph Monet, the second partner, forever changing the face of the company. During the next thirty years the company continued to produce motorcycles, until 1959 when it was absorbed into Motostandard.

Relatively ittle is known about the artist himself, although we do know that he continued to work into the 1930’s, designing posters for companies like Boyriven, an automobile supplier. The difference in design between the art deco Monet & Goyon and the more tradition and detailed Boyriven is striking, considering the fact that Monet & Goyon was designed and printed a full seven years before Boyriven. The bright colors, bold shapes, and central silhouetted figure are very characteristic of the 1920’s and 30’s. Life was moving faster in the early 1900’s. Buses, automobiles, and motorcycles like the one in this poster were moving people quickly from here to there, and as a result advertisements had to use simple designs and bright, bold colors to catch the eye of the passerby. One can simply glance at this poster and know instantly what it is advertising, which was an essential feature of a successful poster design.

Gerard, Boyriven, 1933

In contrast to the Monet & Goyon, Gerard’s later poster for Boyriven reverts back to a more detailed design that focuses less on the brand, and more on the image itself. Why does this poster seem to fall outside the art deco tradition? Check out the white box just below “Société Anonyme” – it’s a calendar! Companies would often print posters that included a calendar, which encouraged individuals to hang their advertisement in their garage or office for an entire year, giving individuals plenty of time to visually explore the image. Too simple, and individuals were more likely to take it down and throw it away. Talk about long term advertising!

This post was written by Emily Jackson, UC Berkeley History Student and Gallery Assistant
Edited by Elizabeth Norris, Owner, Vintage European Posters www.vepca.com

Vintage European Posters was established in 1997.
We are the West Coast’s Largest Dealer in Original Vintage Posters from France and the United States.
See us online anytime at www.vepca.com and at our Berkeley Showroom
OUTPOST
2201 Fourth Street, Tuesdays and Thursdays

As well as at pop up open weekends (sign our mailing list to receive updates about pop-ups)

This fall we will exhibit at the Pasadena Heritage’s Craftsman Weekend October 20-21

The Fall Hillsborough Antiques Show November 2-4

Original Vintage Posters for Victorian Homes

Over the years, we have seen our clients fill their homes with eclectic posters, things that make them happy, things with colors they respond to, things that remind them of places they have visited.  We have also worked with clients who are in search of posters which will reflect the the vintage of their homes.  San Francisco of course, has beautiful Victorian Homes, and we have had the pleasure of placing posters in a handful of these painted ladies, to great effect.

What choices are there for these houses?  Of course you can go gothic.  One of our clients opted for the Hermanos Barraceta and La Damnation of Faust by Dola, both long narrow posters from the turn of the century, which complemented the colors of the home, but also called attention to the exaggerated height of the ceilings.

Hermanos Barraceta and La Damnation of Faust

Those posters are gone, sold long ago and now impossible to find.  Here are a few things from our current collection that I would suggest for a Victorian Home:

Several of our vintage posters from the turn of the century

Many of these homes boast 10 or 12 foot walls, but the walls are embellished with beautiful mouldings, plate rails, or chair rails.  These architectural flourishes create small spaces for hanging art, and we have solutions of those as well.  There were a number of Opera posters created between 1870 and 1914, and these are quite small.  They are, as a group, detailed enough to hold the viewers attention, but also colorful enough to stand up to the rich colors which so many Victorian Homes demand.

Original French opera posters from 1880 to 1910

Another great option for a frieze area between plate rail and crown moulding are the Maitre de l’Affiche series.  These miniature posters were printed between 1896 and 1900, and feature the finest designs by poster artists from that period.  Charming images of children and cats by Steinlen (Lait Pur Sterilise) can grace the walls of any  house from this time period, as can the beautiful, red haired art nouveau women created by Eugene Grasset (Lecons de Violin, Encre Marquet) There are 256 miniature posters in this series, they measure 16 x 11, and as a result, they are easy to place in groupings, and of course, fun to collect. We have many of the Maitres in stock and they can be seen on our website.

Elizabeth Norris
Vintage European Posters
Established 1997
Original Posters from Europe and the United States
http://www.vepca.com
2201 Fourth Street in Berkeley
Corner of Allston Way

510 843 2201

Richard N.Roland Holst; Renaissance Man and Poster Artist

As dealers in original posters, we respond to beautiful images.  We limit our collections to those things which were printed for advertising, and we know biographical information about the biggest artists from each time period- Cheret, Mucha, Steinlen from the Belle Epoque; Cappiello, Cassandre, Colin from the Deco period; Klein, Georget, Galli from the post war period.  Once in a while, we come across a poster which is so stunning, so different from typical poster design, that it warrants a second look.  We love this poster “Tentoostelling” by Richard N. Roland Holst, and it sent us on a quest for more information about the artist.

Social change and economic reform? A deteriation of the decorative arts and an appreciation for the artists? Yes, these indeed were the problems that one Dutch artist, Richard N. Roland Holst, attempted to tackle during his lifetime. Along with other individuals in the Arts and Crafts Movement and as one of the Dutch Symbolists, Holst spurred a revival that changed the course of lithography and fine arts.

Richard N. Roland Holst lived from 1868 to 1938.  He was a Dutch writer and artist working with a variety of mediums, including stained glass, lithography, painting, and illustration. He was best known as one of three prime leaders of the Dutch Symbolist Movement in the early to mid-1900s. Holst trained as an artist in Amsterdam at the Rijksakademie; his first love as an artist was Impressionist painting, and so Vincent Van Gogh and Jan Toroop deeply influenced him in his early years. Holst’s early work comprised of Symbolist drawings and lithographs in this vein. In 1892, after Van Gogh’s death, Holst produced a beautiful commemorative work for Van Gogh using a sunflower motif.*
His political leanings also influenced his work as an artist. Holst and his wife Henriette became part of the Democratic Socialist Party, in Dutch, “Sociaal Democratische Arbeiders Partij.” In the late 1890s, he created lithographs of political cartoons about Socialism, but also kept his work varied by continuing to do landscapes. At the turn of the century, Holst created murals that made a large impact and led to the greatest developments of his career; such “allegorical murals” included themes of Industry and the like. The development of his signature style, namely the geometric forms and very strict form, helped him demonstrate abstract ideas.

Original Poster by Holst advertising an exhibit of prints and printing

This poster by Richard N. Roland Holst called Tentoonstelling was for a September 1917 exhibition in Holland. The poster clearly exhibits Holst’s style at a relatively late part of his career. The symbolism in the black and gold
lithograph shows detail with flowers lining the central image of a tree. He skillfully uses angles to manipulate the viewer’s eye to focus on the central image and then move to the title “40Tentoonstelling.”

What can we learn from Holst’s life about the Dutch Arts and Crafts movement? The Arts and Crafts Movement sought to revive the decorative arts in Europe beginning in the 1890′s. As a historical figure, Holst provides an example of a person whose work is remembered in his country and throughout the art world because his influential style developed into something very specific and recognizable. His style continues to impress us almost one hundred years later.

This poster is part of our current collection and can be seen on our website in the art exhibition section.  It has been framed archivally by the Studio Shop in Burlingame, with a beautiful closed corner frame. We will feature this rare piece at the Pasadena Heritage Show which will be held October 20-21, 2012

Sources

*http://0-www.jstor.org.opac.sfsu.edu/stable/774505]

http://www.artfact.com/artist/holst-richard-roland-o5txyzxw5q

This post was written by Karlie Drutz, SF State Museum Studies Program  and Edited by Elizabeth Norris, Owner Vintage European Posters

Vintage European Posters
http://www.vepca.com
Established 1997

2201 Fourth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
510 843 2201

Eugene Oge and La Menthe Pastille

The greatest thing about collecting original posters is how much we get to learn about 19th and 20th century history just by soaking up these colorful collectibles.  I recently found a Menthe Pastille poster by Eugene Oge which struck me as just such an opportunity to learn more about the period leading up to World War I. It is uncommon for a poster artisit to uses political humour in an advertising poster—politics can be too controversial, and might alienate the consumer from a brand, but in this example, Oge does a great job creating caricatures of the world’s leaders.

In 1904, Eugene Oge created the poster entitled Menthe-Pastille, which has political figures and a theme of mediation and pacification at the “Tribunal International de la Haye,” or the Hague Tribunal. Interestingly enough, Oge re-did the poster nine years later, just before the outbreak of World War I. Why did Oge do this? What were his intentions and why did he use the poster as a political tool when it was uncommon to do so?Oge’s style is expressive, detailed, and shows depth of creative persuasion. His figures show a comedic and satirical take on the problems arising in Europe during the turn of the century. One example of Oge’s satire and caricature-like execution of figures is in the 1904 poster, where Jacques Lebaudy, the “Emperor of the Sahara” peers at a globe over his large, exaggerated nose.

La Menthe Pastille 1904

The poster from 1904 shows a total of 13 figures, each representing something different and interacting together to show political situations in Europe. They sit at a table with a tablecloth decorated with the large text of “La Menthe-Pastille.” All the figures look as if they are in peaceful talks with each other. On the left, Oge depicts William II serving a drink to the Japanese Emperor, Matsuhito. In the foreground, the Emperor of France is being comforted about his inability to produce a male heir. The Japanese Emperor stands behind the Emperor of France, even though they are enemies, but the Emperor of France does not seem concerned. In the middle of the table, the newly chosen Catholic Pope puts his arm around King Emmanuel III of Rome. Next to King Emmanuel III on the right is Edward VII, King of the United Kingdom, who smokes and gazes at the globe that the man on his right, Jacques Lebaudy, gazes at as well. Behind those two figures is Leopold II of Belguim at an image of his “muse” Cleo de Merode. Next, to the right, is Alfonso XIII who sits regally, wearing his crown, as he recently was coronated King of Spain. Lastly, below him sits Uncle Sam with a small African American baby on his lap.

La Menthe Pastille, 1913

In the 1913 poster, the figures are fewer, and some major players in the European situation are either out of power or not longer alive. Only 10 people now populate the poster. **Those missing are Emile Loubet, the French Emperor, and two people who had since died: Edward VII and Leopold II. The situation is much more tense here, and inflammatory situations are shown here that La Menthe-Pastille, William II tries to become allies with the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet V. In the center of the poster, the Kaiser Frederic William, plays with three small childlike figures who represent the Kings of Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece. This poster again tells people to drink La Menthe Pastille to inject tranquility and ease into their lives, but in 1913, the statement is more adamant.

From a historical perspective, these two posters offer us an extraordinary look into the problems that Europe faced just before the First World War broke out, and crisis ensued. By placing the figures where he does, he shows that the powerful countries in Europe were aligning themselves as they saw fit. Germany was allying with Austria, and France and Russia became allies as well. The situation in Europe was fragile and complex; from an advertising perspective, Oge offers the simple solution that if one were to buy the Menthe Pastille, tense situations could be resolved and diffused quite easily.

Sources

* Eugene Oge: Affichiste , Anne-Claude Lelieur et Raymond Bachollet, published 1998 by Agence Culturelle de Paris. p. 214-215)

** Eugene Oge: Affichiste , Anne-Claude Lelieur et Raymond Bachollet, published 1998 by Agence Culturelle de Paris.pages 224-225)

This post was written by Karlie Drutz, San Francisco State Museum Studies Student and VEP intern and Elizabeth Norris, Owner, Vintage European Posters.

See our entire collection of original vintage posters from Europe and the United States at www.vepca.com or visit us on Tuesdays or by appointment at our Berkeley Showroom 2201 Fourth Street in Berkeley, CA