Cognac Sauvion
July 30, 2016 § Leave a comment
by J. Stall, Printed 1925 in France, Original Lithograph on cardboard
A playful poster featuring a Pierrot popping out from a solid black background. This example was printed on cardboard or ‘carton’ as it is called in France. The piece has a string looped through grommets at the top. These window cards were designed to hang in store windows or directly on cash registers as ‘point of purchase’ advertising.
This post was written by Elizabeth Norris, owner of Vintage European Posters
Vintage European Posters is a Berkeley based dealer of
Original French & American Advertising Posters.
Our Showroom is located at 2201 Fourth Street in Berkeley, corner of Allston Way.
Summer of 2016 we are open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays 11-5
and select weekends. Please call ahead to confirm our hours.
Established in 1997, VEP now exhibits at 12 shows per year in California including
Dwell on Design, Palm Springs Modernism, and the Healdsburg Antiques on the Plaza.
Our website www.vepca.com is always up to date.
Original Nuova Zolforatrice poster
July 12, 2016 § Leave a comment
Printed in Italy, circa 1900
Original Stone Lithograph
Italian Art Nouveau poster advertising a sulfur and sulfur applicator. There are many early posters advertising fertilizers, sulfurs and other products for vineyard care. Rather than being aimed at large scale agriculture producers, they were intended for the home viticulturist. This piece features a particularly beautiful hand made typestyle and unusual colors. The Italian Art Nouveau style is often called ‘heroic’ and shows the influenceof classical Italian figurative style. This framed poster is currently on display in Healdsburg’s Barn Diva gallery.
This post was written by Elizabeth Norris, owner of Vintage European Posters
Vintage European Posters is a Berkeley based dealer of
Original French & American Advertising Posters.
Our Showroom is located at 2201 Fourth Street in Berkeley, corner of Allston Way.
Summer of 2016 we are open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays 11-5
and select weekends. Please call ahead to confirm our hours.
Established in 1997, VEP now exhibits at 12 shows per year in California including
Dwell on Design, Palm Springs Modernism, and the Healdsburg Antiques on the Plaza.
Our website www.vepca.com is always up to date.
Nitrolian by Leonetto Cappiello
July 9, 2016 § Leave a comment
Printed in Paris in 1929
Original Stone Lithograph
“Nitrolian” 1929, Paris, printed by Maison Devambez
Cappiello is one of the most important poster artists of the 20th Century.He studied art in his native Italy, entering art school at the age of 13, and arrived in Paris during the Belle Epoque era, and at the height of poster design. He first worked doing caricatures of famous actresses such as Sarah Bernhardt, but soon turned his attention to the production of commercial posters. Cappiello’s use of bold colors and sharp contrasts was a departure from the early masters of the medium- Jules Cheret Alphonse Mucha and Henri de Toulouse Lautrec. And foreshadowed art deco. Cappiello created his first poster in 1899 and very soon, was in constant demand. Over the course of his 40 year career, he created over 1,000 posters and enjoyed life in Paris as a successful working artist.
Nitrolian advertises fast drying paint and the design brilliantly explains the product without words –showing an elegant lady descending a staircase as a well appointed painter paves her way with red paint. Cappiello repeats the design of the poster on the paint can- a clever form of branding. This framed poster is currently on display in Healdsburg’s Barn Diva gallery.
This post was written by Elizabeth Norris, owner of Vintage European Posters
Vintage European Posters is a Berkeley based dealer of
Original French & American Advertising Posters.
Our Showroom is located at 2201 Fourth Street in Berkeley, corner of Allston Way.
Summer of 2016 we are open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays 11-5
and select weekends. Please call ahead to confirm our hours.
Established in 1997, VEP now exhibits at 12 shows per year in California including
Dwell on Design, Palm Springs Modernism, and the Healdsburg Antiques on the Plaza.
Our website http://www.vepca.com is always up to date.
French Loterie Posters by Edgard Derouet and His Workshop
January 14, 2016 § Leave a comment
Edgard Derouet (1910 -2001)
Advertising posters are meant to catch the attention of the passerby. While bustling about on daily business, a pedestrian may absorb the message on a poster, but if distracted, may miss the message altogether. This is where images can trump words, and a familiar image can work it’s magic at a glance. Graphic artists have always strived to find a vehicle which effectively commands the attention of the ‘(wo)man on the street’. One French artist who was very successful at this is Edgard Derouet who designed a clever campaign to promote the French Loterie which, in short order, became instantly recognizable to all.
The French Loterie has a complicated history. King Francis of France debuted the Loterie Royale in 1539, however it was not popular until the 18th century. The money raised by the lottery was used for various government projects, to rebuild churches, and government funds. Public opinions shifted, and when the populace complained about the lottery as exploitive, it was banned. The lottery came and went, enjoying periods of popularity followed by closures. One such closure came in 1836. The lottery did not exist again until it was revived by the socialist government, in need of funds, in 1933.
Edgard Derouet was chosen by the state to create and execute a campaign to promote the Loterie Nationale because of his formidable reputation as a graphic artist. This was not a small task because there had been no lottery for almost a century, and the public needed to be persuaded to participate.
As a young man, Derouet had studied with famed posterist Paul Colin, and been a friend to Monaco poster artist Geo Hamm. He founded a magazine devoted to graphic arts, which featured the work of posterists AM Cassandre, Roger De Valerio and Jaques Nathan, and so he was on the cutting edge of design – in touch with trends and versed in the (short) history of the advertising poster. Derouet won an award for best poster of the year in 1936, and his work was exhibited at the International Exposition of 1937.
What image could convey the excitement of winning the lottery? This is the question that Derouet must have entertained when confronted with this demanding task. How about a man jumping for joy? And this is what Derouet designed. The client liked the figure because of its well tied tie, it’s neatness and its nationalistic look. The simplicity of the figure allowed the artist to elaborate on the settings in which he placed him.
The idea was clever, because the figure became familiar almost immediately. Like the Michelin man, the public smiled fondly on the little jumping man. Derouet had created a popular success. In 1939 the government planned an elaborate PR campaign for the Loterie, with 24 special drawings to be picked in different cities, and they tasked Derouet with communicating this placement with each poster. A couple of examples include the poster ‘weekend’ which depicts the jumping man as a traveler at a train station. This drawing was held at the train station Gare St. Lazare. “Parfums” was held in the South of France in the town of Grasse, which has long been associated with the perfumes they make.
WWII put an end to lottery drawings in France. After the war, Derouet became the commercial director of the print house Bedos and Cie, where he worked for 30 years. Derouet retired in 1980.
Loterie posters are light hearted and fun. Here at Vintage European Posters, we have sold them for almost two decades and seen clients hang them in groups with great effect. This past summer, Vintage European Posters Collector Elizabeth Norris found two separate stacks of lottery posters from after 1950. Visit our collection of Loterie posters, including many by Derouet at www.vepca.com
This post was written by Elizabeth Norris, owner of Vintage European Posters and edited by Kate Klingbeil, Print Specialist.
Vintage European Posters is a Berkeley based dealer of Original French and American Advertising Posters. Established in 1997, VEP now exhibits at 12 shows per year in California including Dwell on Design, Palm Springs Modernism, and the Hillsborough Antiques Show.
Our Showroom is located at 2201 Fourth Street in Berkeley, at the corner of Allston Way.
We are open most Tuesdays, and many other days. Our website is always up to date.
Please call ahead to confirm our hours.
Our website is always up to date. www.vepca.com
Poster References in the DeYoung’s current exhibition “Jewel City – Art from Panama Pacific International Exhibition”
November 17, 2015 § Leave a comment
It is always a treat to find references to the ubiquity of posters in paintings. Attending museum exhibits which focus on the past 150 years often include both advertising posters from the period as well as art with life on city streets as it’s subject. If the viewer is attuned to posters, they can be spotted in some of these paintings and photographs.
Panama Pacific International Exposition Poster (via Emphemerastudies.org)
In the current show at the DeYoung, the obvious poster is the one advertising the fair itself. As is the case with most world’s fair posters, they artist won a poster competition and their design was selected by a committee to advertise the Fair.
The winning design was by Perham Nahl and features the son of Jupiter parting the earth to reveal San Francisco in the background. The poster is quite small- measuring 13 3/8″ x 24″ and the color palette is subtle.
Andre Devambez – La Charge (1902) (via artandopinion.tumblr.com)
The poster within a painting which really struck me though was “The Charge” by Andre Eduoard Devambez. This painting, which is on loan from the Musee D’Orsay is apparently the most famous work by the artist. It features a street scence in Montmarte- a conflict between demonstrators and police, and is painted with an unusual perspective- as if viewed by the painter from above the scene. I was struck by the fact that the street in the scene was dotted with poster kiosks on both sides of the street, and that they serve to punctuate the street. And then I realized the artist’s name was Devambez. Possibly this was a coincidence, but the last name is also that of one of the very famous poster printers, which we have catalogued on numerous occasions. The placard at the DeYoung mentions that Devambez’s family printed the catalogue of French art on view in the French Pavilion at the Exposition. So my hunch that this artist would be from the very same family who printed the legendary posters of Leonetto Cappiello among others grew stronger.
Veuve Amiot by Leonetto Cappiello 1922 (via vepca.com)
It turns out that the Devambez printing house was established long before the hey day of Cappiello. Eduoard Devambez was himself an artist, and his print house was highly respected for it’s work with engraving, copper plate etching, typography, lithography, calligraphy, book binding, stamping and won awards at world’s fairs. Devambez was awarded the prestigious work of printing presentation books, menus for visiting foreign monarchs and became the official engraver for the Royal family of Portugal.
It is Eduard Devambez’s son who created “The Charge” in 1902. While I was studying the painting at the DeYoung, a docent led tour came into the gallery, and we learned about how the paintings for the French Pavilion at the Pan Pacific made their harrowing journey to San Francisco.
Of course a worlds’s fair- like an Olympics- is planned for by its host city and by participants for years ahead of the actual event. The art slated for display at the French Pavilion had already been discussed, when war broke out on July 28, 1914.
Much of World War I was fought on the open ocean, so transporting goods across the Atlantic was tricky. Munitions and supplies were the priority, and those shipments were targets. France was eager to keep its word to display art at the Pan Pacific Exposition, and to show the superiority of their artists. This, coupled with the fact that many precious artworks in French museums were being crated up and hidden from possible theft, made sending the works oversea an even greater imperative.
So how was it done? The allies made use of what was called the Christmas Ship. This ship was packed with clothing, toys and food donated by American children and intended for British and Belgian children as a goodwill gesture. The ship was unloaded at a number of ports in Europe. Amid great secrecy, the Christmas Ship was loaded with precious works of art destined for the 1915 Pan Paciifc Worlds Fair in San Francisco. Because of the opening of the Panama Canal, the journey was shortened by 8,000 miles.
This blog post was written by Elizabeth Norris, principal of Vintage European Posters. Please visit the Vintage European Posters website www.vepca.com to view our extensive collection of original advertising posters.
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