The European Poster 1888-1938

The modern poster dates back to around 1870, when color lithography had been sufficiently perfected to permit mass production. Artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec and Jules Chéret were quick to perceive and embrace the possibilities of the poster as a form, as means of disseminating their work and as a source of income. New movements in late nineteenth-century art, such as Art Nouveau and Symbolism, also adapted their respective styles to commercial demands, and their graphic power was such that major poster surveys were held as early as 1884. Among the genre's earliest innovators, Chéret is considered to have been especially influential commercially, for having first used seductive depictions of women as an advertising ploy. Later on, in the early days of the Soviet avant-garde, artists like Rodchenko and Klutsis were also to apply their graphic know-how to the poster form, in the service of a new communist Russia and its booming industries. This magnificent boxed volume reproduces 175 posters from the last decades of the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, loose-leaf and in full color. The works have been gathered by expert Carlos Pérez from European museums and renowned international private collections. Among the 90-plus artists included here are Chéret, Ramón Casas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre Bonnard, Alfons Mucha, Henri Matisse, Cassandre, Paul Colin, Jean Carlu, Giacomo Balla, Herbert Bayer, Otto Baumberger, John Heartfield, Vladimir Lebedev, Alexander Rodchenko, Man Ray, Kurt Schwitters, Oskar Schlemmer, Gustav Klutsis, Robert Béreny and Fortunato Depero. An accompanying paperback book, housed within the box, provides an historical overview.