The Rise of Posters as Decorative Art

While researching the work of Eugene Grasset, I came across and interesting book authored by Arsene Alexandre titled The Modern Poster. The book was published in 1895 by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Arsene Alexandre was an art critic and a fan of Eugene Grasset (the man and his art).

How posters became collectible art is explained below.

“In former days a few posters by E. Delacroix, Nanteuil, Daumier, Gavarni, Henri Monnier, and later Manet, made up the whole of this branch of art, and these few could be kept by a print-collector in a small portfolio. Then Cheret appeared. He produced hundreds of posters that were eagerly collected, especially as they were not very easily secured. Then everybody began, not only to collect posters, but to make them; every painter was ambitious to be a Cheret — but non licet omnibus.

The successive stages of this commerce in posters are interesting to note. When the first works of this kind appeared upon the walls, the novelty-lovers began their campaign.

How could these mural frescos be secured?

To peel them off the walls one’s self, at night, seemed the simplest plan but it was also the most dangerous. It
involved the risk of being caught in the act, taken to the police station and soundly fined, to say nothing of the risk of “peeling” them badly and getting off the wall only a thing of tatters. It became necessary, then, to secure the complicity of an all-powerful personage the bill-poster.

How many great collectors, honorable and honored men, rich and well placed in life, have bowed down before His Majesty the Bill-poster! The paster of posters, realizing a sum which varied with the importance of the vogue of the matter in
hand, came to deserve the name of the un-paster of posters. That was the primitive period, the stone age, of
poster-collectors.

The bronze age began when one or two print-sellers in the neigh-borhood of the quais arranged with the bill-posters for a few copies which they sold to their customers. But there were suits brought by the printers and artists, and sentences pronounced; for the courts would not admit that the interest of art gave the right to dispose in this way of merchandise which did not belong to the sellers. And thus by severe lessons, was ushered in the golden age in which
we live.

The print-sellers, driven by the growing flood of demand, finally decided that it was worth while to arrange with the
proprietors of the posters themselves, that a part of each printing should be reserved for amateurs; and so the commerce in posters became a real profession, which dealers like Messrs. Kleinmann & Gagot practise on a large scale. There is in fact — and this is the captivating side of all real collecting — an actual bourse, an exchange, for posters. The philosopher may smile, but the collector will let him smile. Not only posters as such, but even (as in the case of the most valuable prints) different “states” of the posters are collected.

Posters before letter, posters on common paper and paper de luxe, signed by the artists, or numbered in accordance with a rigidly limited numbering of copies. And why not, after all, since these lithographs have become true artistic prints? There have been, and will be again, exhibitions of posters where the names of Cheret, Grasset, Willette, Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre Bonnard, Louis Anguetin, G. de Feure, H. G. Ibels, and others are most highly valued. These posters are sought by amateurs and individual buyers for decorating apartments, halls, etc. There is even a small trade generated by the large trade — that of the mounter of posters; a workman (sometimes a binder, sometimes a framer) who pastes posters on a fine cloth back with a roller at each end, like the Japanese kakimonos.

Perhaps it was a little beyond the reader’s expectation to see this little matter of the Parisian kakimono touched upon. But it is the most curious and the least known part of the history of the artistic poster.

Portrait of Jules Cheret by J. Blanche Salon 1899

Portrait of Jules Cheret by J. Blanche from Salon 1899

Art Deco and Art Nouveau Publications Series Amazon B&N Magcloud
Eugene Grasset: A Passion for Design n/a Available Available Available
Art Nouveau Decorative Designs Delsc Available Available Available
The Library of Eugene Grasset Delsc Available Available Available
The Women and Cats of Art Nouveau Artists Delsc Available Available Available
Art Deco Fashion Designs: Barbier, Brissaud and Marty Delsc Available Available Available