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A Short introduction to the History of the
Poster |
Jules Cheret
Taverne Olympia, 1889
H. de Toulouse-Lautrec
Moulin Rouge, 1891
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Defining Poster
What makes a poster a poster? How does it differ from a painting or a work of graphic art?
A poster is typically a printed paper announcement that is displayed publicly and
functions as a tool for the promotion of a product, an event, or a sentiment or cause
through image and/or text. A poster's principal task is to be noticed: it must attract
attention and influence the passerby.
Beginnings
The poster is a product of the big city. Theater companies and (book) printers in London
and Paris were the first to make use of the poster. Food or household items were not
really advertised until the second half of the 19th century when more goods were offered
and similar products began competing for their customers. The political poster, the third
large group after the cultural and the product poster, developed, with a few exceptions,
only around World War I.
Jules Cheret and Lithography
The poster as we know it today started to develop after 1860. Before Alois Senefelder's
discovery of the process of lithography in 1798, most posters were produced as monochrome
wood or metal engravings. Even in the early lithographic prints, colors were seldom used
and the illustration was never integrated with the text. This changed with Jules Cheret,
the undisputed father of the modern poster. Cheret introduced vivid, direct designs,
combining illustration and text and using few bright colors in large coherent shapes. His
central motif was a happily, laughing young Parisian woman showing her eternally dazzling
smile at the onlooker.
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Eugene Grasset
Encre L. Marquet, 1892
Eugene Steinlen
Lait pur Sterilise, 1894
Henry van de Velde
Tropon, 1897
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Poster Craze
The 1880s and 1890s marked the beginning of L'Affichomanie, the poster craze: the
colorful, large billboards were euphorically greeted as "Art of the Street" and
as such suited to raise the art appreciation of the masses. Cheret's posters (and those of
others soon thereafter) were viewed as public works or art. Newspaper critics thoroughly
discussed poster art: the use of color, the composition and the drawing itself. The
product seemed secondary. Even the young artists of the Parisian
avant-garde were attracted to the poster. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Pierre Bonnard
viewed the new art form and its large paper format as a challenge and wanted their works
to gain broader public recognition. It was Toulouse-Lautrec who elevated the status of the
poster to a higher art form. Lautrec had a profound knowledge of Japanese engraving. In
contrast to Cheret, he drew individual faces rather than generic figures and his use of
words did not overpower the image. His most famous poster is Moulin Rouge from 1891.
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Alphonse Maria Mucha
Sarah Bernhardt, 1895 |
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Art Nouveau
Paris was the center of poster art. From here, the poster boom spread to Europe and the
United States. Following Cheret, many artists began to specialize in making posters
(Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen in Paris, Will Bradley in Chicago, Adolfo Hohenstein in
Milan, to name a few). The poster designers were honored in public exhibitions and greeted
as artists of a new era.
In the early 1890s, the poster discovered Art Nouveau. The ornamental style that
flourished between 1890 and 1910 throughout Europe and the United States became most
prominently manifest in the poster designs of a young Czech living in Paris. Alphonse
Maria Mucha's combination of a Byzantine style and a subtle use of color made him an
immediate success. His poster for Sarah Bernhardt, a purely decorative portrayal of the
deal of feminine beauty, could be called a masterpiece of Art Nouveau.
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Adolfo Hohenstein
Bitter Campari, c. 1900
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Outside of Paris
While enthusiastic collectors in Paris were discovering the posters of Cheret and
Toulouse-Lautrec, conventional graphic ideas still dominated the walls in most other
European cities. The example of the French masters, however, soon had a liberating effect.
In Germany, new avant-garde journals like "Pan" (1895, Berlin),
"Simplizissimus" (1896, Munich) and "Jugend" (1896, Munich, the name
"Jugendstil" was derived from this), began to spread the new ideas and style. In
Vienna, the new Secession movement (founded in 1897) threw out all old standards and
introduced a rebirth of artistic creation. Munich and Vienna became important centers of
poster activity. But skilled crafts also experienced a revival in other
European countries. In Belgium, Privat-Livemont was a leading artist. While comparable to
Mucha, his designs were bolder and stronger in colors. In Holland, Henry van de Velde
created one of the most exceptional Art Nouveau image in his poster for the food
"Tropon." In Italy, Adolfo Hohenstein and Leopoldo Metlicovitz became well-known
illustrators who made posters for publishers, stores and the theatre. The Art Nouveau
phenomenon flourished across Europe and dominated the poster style into the next century.
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The Beggarstaff Brothers
Don Quixote, 1896
Lucian Bernhard
Priester, 1905/1908 |
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The 20th Century: Beyond Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau began to lose its vitality in France with the departure of the three major
posterists. Toulouse-Lautrec died in 1901; both Mucha and Cheret turned largely away from
the poster and dedicated themselves to painting. Artists everywhere found new ways of
expressing themselves. The Beggarstaff Brothers in England were the first designers to
emphasize more than just the enlarged illustrations with text. They reduced the text to a
minimum and designed large, strict compositions. In France, the young Italian caricaturist
Leonetto Cappiello sought to combine the popularity of Cheret's happy posters with the
large flat areas and simple motifs of the Beggarstaff.
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Leonetto Cappiello
Pur Champagne, 1902 |
An important development took place in Berlin after 1905, where a new kind of
poster started to conquer the city's advertising kiosks: a young artist named Lucian
Bernhard gave birth to the object poster which placed the central focus on the product,
eliminating the feminine eye-catcher and other metaphors. Bernhard took a radical new
approach to poster design, dramatically simplifying the use of form, flat colors, shapes
and bold type (see his prize-winning poster for Priester matches in 1905). The idea of Art
Nouveau became outgrown. The ornamental elements noticeably disappeared and color and
design were incorporated realistically to the task at hand.
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"Designing posters" soon developed into an accepted artistic
profession. Labor unions were formed (f.ex. the "Union of German Graphic Designers)
and professional journals were published (Das Plakat). Posters started to be
printed in uniform, standardized format sizes. In France, printers used the outdoor format
160 x 120 cm (63 x 47 in.); in Switzerland, the
Weltformat 128 x 90 cm (50 x 35
in.), in Germany, the DIN-format 119 x 84 cm (47 x 33 in.) and 84 x 59 cm (33 x 23 in.).
Numerous poster exhibitions with international participation and awards helped enhance the
quality and high standards.
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Howard Chandler Christy
Fight or Buy Bonds, 1917
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World War I
A new trend developed with the deteriorating political developments and the
outbreak of the First World War: the political poster was born. Before 1914, political
posters were censored in most countries. During the World War I, however, they became the
most powerful propaganda tool. (Today, it is impossible to imagine a country without it.)
World War I turned the poster into the most important medium of political imagery. With
its blunt and powerful message, the poster influenced history: it helped rally support,
increase morale, raise money, recruit soldiers, defame the enemy and boost patriotism and
support for the war. The poster's impact was immediate.
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Rudi Feld, Die Gefahr des Bolschewismus, 1919 |
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Charles Loupot, Exposition Arts Decoratifs, 1925
E.McKnight Kauffer, Winter Sales - Underground, 1921
Otto Baumberger
Baumann, 1928
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Streamline and Art Deco
After World War I, an increasingly industrial society arrived at new definitions of
the proper relationship between art and society. Influenced by the modern art movements
like Cubism, Futurism, and Surrealism, the poster played a central role in
the avant-garde movements of the 1920s, from
de Stijl to
Bauhaus and
Russian Constructivism. Photography and Typography combined with the mechanical
revolution became an integral part in poster design and development.
In
stark contrast to the florid creations of the Art Nouveau, this machine age led to the
development of a the Art Deco movement (named after the 1925
Exposition Internationale
des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris). Art Deco placed a strong
emphasis on striking geometric shapes and patterns and bold, streamlined typeface. The
movement quickly spread throughout Europe.
| Adolphe Mouron Cassandre’s
achievements in the Art Deco realm remain unrivalled. His posters for newspapers,
railways, and shipping-lines, are proof of his ability to simplify things to a sign-like
design to make them more easily understandable. Cassandre combined strength and elegance
and carefully integrated text lettering as an important graphic element.
Charles
Loupot, Jean Carlu, Pierre Fix-Masseau and Paul Colin are other well-known posterists who
determined the style of French Art Deco posters in the 1920s and 30s. In Italy, Marcello
Dudovich, Sepo (Severo Pozatti) and Giuseppe Riccobaldi were considered to be among the
leaders in illustrative poster-designing. In England, McKnight Kauffer was one if the most
gifted and influential designers between the wars. He designed over 120 posters for the
London Underground alone. His posters belong to the masterpieces of modern poster art.
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A.M.Cassandre.
Statendam. 1928 |
Some of the best known graphic designers came from Switzerland, including
Otto Baumberger, Hugo Laubi, Otto Morach, Niklaus Stoecklin and Herbert Matter. Their
posters are distinguished by the minimal use of graphic means and their effectively
calculated orchestration of space and the use of color.
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Abram Games, Your talk may kill, 1942
Raymond Savignac
Salveplast, 1954
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World War II and Beyond
During the Second World War, the poster was once again a fundamental propaganda
medium to rally support for the war. Similar to World War I, the United States was again
at the forefront of poster production, encouraging American citizens to enlist, buy bonds
or work in the war industry. Jean Carlu, who happened to be in New York when France
surrendered to Germany in 1940, was commissioned to create a poster to increase industrial
output. His award-winning poster America's Answer! Production is among the finest
of the U.S. defense posters from the period. One hundred thousand copies of
Production
were printed and distributed to the factories. But in contrast to the First World War, the
poster was now forced to take its place among other media, mainly radio and television. An
important transformation was under way in which the poster had to redefine its own
significance and purpose. |
Jean Carlu
America's Answer Production, 1941/1942 |
The enormous destruction and dislocations caused by the
Second World War led to a disruption of the modernist enterprise. The modem art movement
emerged as the preferred art of the free democratic world. Two contradictory art
styles characterized the decades after the war. As the strict, formal
compositional concerns of the 1930s further eroded, art moved toward a lyrical
abstraction, accentuating painterly qualities, anecdotal and humorous drawing. The emphasis was on light entertainment, now presented in the context of
modernism. Example of this new spirit can be seen in the work of Raymond Savignac whose
simplified illustration style spread from France as far as Poland and the United States.
In Switzerland, Hans Erni, Donald Brun and Herbert Leupin are
noteworthy of mentioning. In different ways - some as sublime illustrators with
graphic means, others with a clever wittiness and irresistible humor - their works
emphasized the illustrative reality of the Zürich and Basel Schools of Design.
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Josef Müller-Brockmann
weniger lärm, 1960
Robert Büchler
typographie, 1960 |
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Swiss Design
On the other hand, an international typographic style developed in
Switzerland. Switzerland emerged as the most influential center of
graphic design during the first decades after the war. The country's technically advanced
and highly skilled printing industry had continued to develop while the rest of Europe was
destroyed by the war. The Swiss' already strong tradition of graphic design had further
been nurtured under the influences of the Bauhaus and Constructivist movement. Swiss
poster development and design was actively supported by the government through annual
competitions. Journals such as Graphis (1944) and
New Graphic Design (1958)
were at the forefront of design innovation. In the 1950s, the popular Helvetica typeface
was developed; its widespread use made it an icon of the Swiss graphic style.
Armin Hofmann and Josef Müller-Brockmann were among the leading innovators
of Swiss graphic design. Their powerful visual designs employed both the traditions of the
1920s as well as innovative combinations of typography and photography. Some of their
leading counterparts came from the United States. Designers such as Paul Rand, Erik
Nitsche and Lester Beall made influential contributions to the modern post-war poster and
the development of graphic design. |
Lester Beall, Rural Electrification Administration, c. 1936
Erik Nitsche
General Dynamics, 1958
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Richard Avedon
The Beatles, 1967
Niklaus Troxler
Cecil Taylor Solo, 1989
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The Psychedelic Poster
The ever-growing dominance of radio and especially television and a virtually
complete dependence on photography in the field of print advertising resulted in new- and
re-definitions of poster art. The pop art and the counterculture
movements of the mid-1960 led to the development and rise of the a new (if brief) visual
style, the psychedelic poster. Influenced by a
combination of rock music and hallucinogenic drugs, the movement was
strongest in San Francisco. In many ways, the flower power posters
announcing hall concerts in the Fillmore and Haight-Ashbury districts reminded of the
golden age of Art Nouveau Age of the 1890s.
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The End of the Poster?
The last decades of the 20th century have been largely coined by an experimental
use with electronic technology and data processing. Since the 1980s, graphic design has
flourished through the use of computer design and the construction of digitized images and
texts.
In our age of continuous technological change and innovation, the poster
has proven itself to be an adaptable and resilient medium. While its
artistic dynamism and commercial function have declined, the poster remains an important
cultural medium that allows broad visual expression of ideas and beliefs, both political
and individual. Posters engage the world and function as social and artistic barometers in
every-day cultural, economic and political issues.
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