The Color Revolution : Color Lithography in France, 1890-1900
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Vw-.e- B0ST01SI PUBLIC LIBRARY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/colorrevolutioncOOcate t <m |. I I i; I $9.95 «COWHK£VOlUaON cdonhtbc&KAphy tn )8?0')?oo 1 dXjjiouRfvoiuaoN coloKhthoc^f^hy in fKWce )$pO')pOO Phillip Dennis Cate Director Rutgers University Art Gallery and Sinclair Hamilton Hitchings Keeper of Prints Boston Public Library with a translation by Margaret Needham of Andre Mellerio’s 1898 Essay Lrt Lithographic originale en couleurs Exhibition Schedule Rutgers University Art Gallery: September lO-October 29, 1978 New Brunswick. New Jersey The Baltimore Museum of Art: November 10-December 31, 1978 The Boston Public Library (smaller Exhibition) May 2-Jtily 1, 1979 This Exhibition and catalogue have been organized and published by the Rutgers LIniversity Art Gallery, Rutgers, The State Ehtiversity of New Jersey, in cooperation with The Boston Public Library with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Eederal Agency in Washington, D.C. V vv l\lL ^^jOU <• i 1‘../y I his book is the result of an exhibition and catalogue which were organized and published by the Rutgers University Art Ciallery, Rutgers, d he State University of New Jersey, in cooperation with T he Boston Public Library and with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Federal Agency in Washington, D.C. Exhibition Schedule: Rutgers Lhiiversity Art Gallery September lO-October 29, 1978 Ehe Baltimore Museum of Art November 10-December 81, 1978 Ehe Boston Public Library May 2-July 1, 1979 (smaller exhibition) Copyright © 1978 by Peregrine Smith, Inc., and Rutgers Lhiiversity ISBN: 0-87905-032-2 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 78-13809 All rights reserved for all countries, including the right of translation. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publishers. Manufactured in the United States of America bv Hoffman Printing IV Contents Introduction The 1880s: The Prelude 1 The 1890s: The Revolution 16 Notes 34 Phillip Dennis Cate Illustrations of Prints in Color 41 (Figures 48 through 79) Andre Mellerio (1862-1943) 72 Phillip Dennis Cate Original Color Lithography (Translated by Margaret Needham) 75 (La Lithographie originale en couleurs) Andre Mellerio Simplicity of Means 100 Eighty Years of an Artist’s Medium 115 Sinclair Hamilton Hitelungs Biographies of Artists 124 Bibliography Index \' Introduction For a period ot approximately ten years— 1890 to His essay of 1898 gives detailed consideration to 19()0—color lithography nourished in France as the nineteen artists and their color lithographs. Fwenty- favored print making medium of avant-garde ar- one more he mentions briefly, and another dozen tists. I he intensity ot artistic production in the are mentioned in passing. He also discusses the medium caused Andre Mellerio, editor of the editors and dealers Sagot, Kleinmann, Pellet and journal L'Estampe et I'ajfiche, to write and publish a Vollard and the printers Duchatel, Stern and Clot, small book entitled La Lithographie uriginale en and he comments on a number of publications (ouleurs in 1898. Its cover and fronticepiece were devoted to the commissioning and issuing of firigi- color lithographs designed by Pierre Bonnard. In it nal color lithographs. Of the attention being given Melleiio observed that the general artistic use of the to color lithography in Paris in the nineties he medium ot color lithography was a phenomenon writes, "Even older artists with glorious careers are unicjue to his time. He also realized that the interested. As for the young, this method is a medium was the one creative common denominator veritable instrument of battle which they use abun- among the variety of radical, experimental aesthetic dantly and happily. Some have given their hearts to movements in French art. Indeed, Mellerio was the work .... Day by day they improve and perfect among the first to .see the growing use of color the technicpie, each in the aspect fitted to his lithography in the 1890s as a valid artistic move- temperament.” ment in itself — a movement which he also saw as La Lithographie origiuale ni cmilears, with its review having social repercussions and aesthetic implica- of the short history of color lithography as an tions in the future. artistic medium and its astute critical appraisals of Mellerio’s book was printed in an edition of one artists’ works, serves as the basis for the present thousand. Among collectors, it has attracted interest jHiblication and the exhibition which has coincided largely tor the two small color prints contributed by with it. Mellerio’s book is such as important docu- Bonnard, yet it remains the best description of one ment of nineteenth century art criticism (one which artistic phenomenon in a time and place that are has never been available in English) that we sought, well-remembered. It comes from the man who first of all, a careful translation to be printed in made himself, tor the Nabis, their resident critic its entirety. and commentator, analyzing, gently reproving, en- Hindsight, however, allows one to appreciate the couraging. Fhey knew him as an advcxate of their full implications of the designing, printing, publish- work, and they were lucky to have him, just as they ing and distributing of color lithographs in the were fortunate to have Vollard as entrepreneur. medium’s first and greatest decade and to under- Fhe alliance was of benefit to all concerned. Of the stand better its sources. The perspective of time two, we remember Vollard today as a titan among suggests that this activity was more than just an art dealers and as creator of his own uni(|ue and artistic movement but indeed was a “revolution” — memorable chapter of the patronage of art; we social, commercial and artistic. remember his fove of what the portfolio-series of It was an artistic revolution stimulated not only prints and the illustrated book can become in the by early efforts in color lithography of the 1870s hands of great artists. Mellerio’s life, by contrast, has and 1880s but also by the development of new long been in the shadows. He deserves an honored commercial color printing processes used in illus- place in the history of art criticism. trating journals and books. Through the design of VII large, colorlul commercial [)osters, tlieatre pro- scholars are hel]jful in the effort to piece together grams and book covers by artists absorbed in exper- the full story of artists’ color lithography in the 1890s. iments anri new concepts, it altered irrevocably tbe I Wo authorities whose work deserves .separate concept ot advertising — frotn illiistratioti and de- mention are Glaufle Roger-Marx and L’na Johnson. scription ot a product to sales throngb tbe sensual Rogei -Marx’s comments on color lithography in the appeal ot color and design. I’he element ot social introductions to his catalogues of the lithographs of revolution was present by implication, tor many ot Bonnard and V'uillard and in his other yvritings are the artist-designers were strong supporters ot of particular value. ,So is the meticulously detailed socialist and anarchist activities. Steinlen, Luce, Ibels knowledge of Vollard’s publishing ventures which and others illustrated radical journals often in color Una Johnson has presented in hevAynbroise Vollard, (though not in lithography), and their mimeroiis Editeur. The medium of color lithography and color lithographs bespoke their jtolitical and social Vollard’s role in bringing artists to it are substantial sympathies. Mellerio stated that Cheret’s posters parts of her story, and the information she gives on and Riviere’s prints were “the frescoes, if not ot the prints and projects is indispensable. poor, at least of the crowd.” The Color Revolution endeavors to complete that Since the publication of Mellerio’s essay, rela- story in the following yvays: by documenting the tively little has been written specifically on the early history of the medium as yvell as the events in theme of late nineteenth century color lithography. commercial and noncommercial color printing There are, however, two studies which together which led up to the 1890s and which helped to set encompass the two main divisions of the medium in the atmosphere which was favorable to color print- the nineties: the commercial poster and the indi- ing; by revealing the vehicles of support yvhich vidual print. Robert Goldwater’s 1942 Gazette des began to emerge in the mid-eighties—the print and Beaux-Arts article “L’Affiche moderne, a revival of poster dealers, color lithographic printers, inde- poster art after 1880,” summarized the develop- pendent exhibitions, print albums and journals; by ment of the color lithographic poster; in the same indicating tbe conflicting printmaking aesthetics of journal, Gustave von Groschwitz’s 1954 article “The the period, and by discussing the variety of stylistic Significance of XIX Gentury color lithography” approaches to the medium. added further analysis and detailed information on Finally, as an epilogue to the color revolution, the history of nineteenth century color lithographic achievements in color lithography by twentieth- prints. Also in 1954, Von Groschwitz mounted a century artists in Europe and the United States are major exhibition at the Cincinnati Art Museum ot discussed. Though original yvork in color lithog- the Albert P. Strietmann Collection of Color Litho- raphy sloyved at the turn of the century, the graphs, and issued a concise catalogue. Daryl medium has remained an important means of ex- Rubenstein’s The Avant-Garde in Theatre and Art: pression for many artists throughout the last French PlayhUls of the 1890s, although not specifically seventy-eight years. oriented toward color lithography, has collated val- The choice of prints to be reproduced in color in uable information on the role of theatre programs this publication was based on several criteria.