FICHOMAN L’AF IA THE PASSION FOR FRENCH POSTERS

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L’Affichomania. The Passion for French Posters 1 FFICHOMAN ’A IA These pioneering artists defined a never-before-seen L THE PASSION FOR and never forgotten art form: the color poster. FRENCH POSTERS

elebrating the inexhaustible Showcasing some of the most iconic era known as the Belle Époque. Drawn Cover Alphonse Mucha, Princess Hyacinth, 1911, color lithograph, photograph by John Faier, © The spirit of fin-de-siècle , images of the time, the exhibition is from the Driehaus Collection of Fine Richard H. Driehaus Museum, 2015 1 Jules Chéret, L’Affichomania: The Passion for composed of six groupings, five of and Decorative Arts, and organized by Folies-Bergère/La Loïe Fuller, 1893, color lithograph, photograph by John Faier, © The Richard H. Driehaus French Posters features which are devoted to the artistic the Richard H. Driehaus Museum, Museum, 2015 2 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jane approximately 62 lithographic posters, contributions of each artist. A sixth Chicago, L’Affichomania: The Passion Avril, 1893, color lithograph, photograph by John Faier, © The Richard H. Driehaus Museum, 2015 3 ephemera, and videos by the five section recreates the era of public for French Posters presents an excep- Eugène Grasset, Cycles & Automobiles, 1899, color grand masters of the medium: lithograph, photograph by John Faier, © The Richard Jules performances in Paris, with posters tional selection of works that conveys H. Driehaus Museum, 2015 Chéret, the father of the modern poster; featuring the celebrated singers and the visual power and scale of posters, Eugène Grasset, who explored dancers that appeared at such venues and the range of expression by the feminine beauty in rich, medieval as the Folies Bergère, Les Ambassa- medium’s best-known artists working in settings; Alphonse Mucha, known for deurs, and Le Chat Noir. The posters turn-of-the-century Paris. depicting sensuous women and the date from 1875 to 1910, an exuberant whiplash curves of their tresses; Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, creator of some of the best-loved images of the era; and finallyHenri de Toulouse- Lautrec, who pointed the way to . These pioneering artists defined a never-before-seen and never forgotten art form: the color poster. L’Affichomania explores the achievements of these artists in concert with the poster’s role in French society, which includes its effect on the life of the Parisian street, the rise of advertising, the entertainment district of , and the changing representations of women.

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2 L’Affichomania. The Passion for French Posters L’Affichomania. The Passion for French Posters 3 Parisians strolling the city soon found themselves POSTERS AS ART on an urban stage with posters as the backdrop to their daily lives.

rom the early 1880s to the The color poster was heralded as a late1890s, Paris witnessed the new art form as artists took hold of the first great era of poster art, commercial printing process known as sometimes called its Golden chromolithography and adapted it to Age. Although founded and led by their creative needs. In their hands, the Jules Chéret (who is often acknowl- color lithograph became a thrilling new edged as the movement’s artistic means of creating visual excitement in leader), the medium’s immense success the form of posters as well as the was due to a convergence of techno- domestically-scaled colored print. Some logical, economic, and legal develop- called it a “color revolution.” ments, all of which helped make the As pedestrians encountered this lively poster an inescapable presence on the new medium posted on the walls and streets of Paris. Perhaps the most kiosks of Parisian boulevards, the tempo important factor in the poster’s rise was of modern life seemed to beat faster. the passage of the Law on the Freedom By the mid-1880s, a thriving business 4 of the Press of 29 July 1881, which was firmly in place for advertising all greatly relaxed the strictures on printing manner of goods and for vividly and publishing. The timing coincided evoking the sensory experience of a with Chéret’s advances in color live show or other event using the color lithography. As a result, color-printed poster. With the advent of devoted posters were exhibited in the most collectors, public exhibitions soon public of galleries—the street—where followed, securing the medium’s place they began to blur the boundaries as a newly respected and enthusiasti- between fine and popular art. Parisians strolling the city soon found themselves cally received art form. on an urban stage with posters as the backdrop to their daily lives. 4 Eugène Grasset, Salon des Cent: Exposition Grasset, 1894, color lithograph, photograph by John Faier, © The Richard H. Driehaus Museum, 2015 5 Théophile- Alexandre Steinlen, Lait Pur Sterilise, photograph by John Faier, © The Richard H. Driehaus Museum, 2015 6 Alphonse Mucha, Zodiac, 1896, color lithograph on silk, photograph by John Faier, © The Richard H. Driehaus Museum, 2015 5 6

4 L’Affichomania. The Passion for French Posters L’Affichomania. The Passion for French Posters 5 AFFICHOMANIA

he sudden popularity of and thus in their preservation—Sagot obstruction by posters from rival firms, posters fueled a passion introduced a series of twelve color the ephemeral poster nevertheless for collecting them, called lithographic posters by Jules Chéret became the subject of passionate affichomania. Some collectors that were printed on high-quality paper collecting in its own time. surreptitiously removed them from in a limited edition of fifty: a practice walls or illegally purchased them from increasingly common for art prints but a billposters, but most sought out dealers radical one for posters, which typically who had begun to specialize in them. were mass-produced and printed Starting in 1886, Edmond Sagot had on cheap paper.1 Shrewdly prescient the foresight to become the first and of their appreciating value, Sagot best-known poster dealer of the age arranged for Chéret to sign each print, when he began selling them in his which helped advance the poster as an gallery. Sagot acquired them in various art form. ways, whether through his connections Bright and bold and found everywhere to the venues where the posters were along the boulevards of fin-de-siècle hung, from the distributing agencies, Paris, the color poster was a brilliant or occasionally from the billposters fusion of art and commerce. It themselves. advertised cigarette papers and milk, By 1890, acknowledging the immortalized stage stars and bohemian emergence of affichomaniacs—a new , and won the adoration of breed of poster collectors with an passersby and art collectors alike. interest in the artistic value of the works, Subject as it was to wind, rain, and 8

7 Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, Le Journal/La Traite des Blanches (The White Slave Trade), 1899, color lithograph, photograph by John Faier, © The Richard H. Driehaus Museum, 2015 8 Jules Chéret, , Au Concert Parisien, 1891, color lithograph, photograph by John Faier, © The Richard H. Driehaus I Catalogue d’affiches illustrées anciennes et modernes, No 30: Paris, Librairie Ed. Sagot, 1891. Museum, 2015 7

6 L’Affichomania. The Passion for French Posters L’Affichomania. The Passion for French Posters 7 Chéret remains the first master of the medium FIVE GRAND MASTERS and a presiding figure in the field.

Jules Chéret (French, 1836–1932)

Widely viewed as the father of the employed densely clustered figures In 1890, Chéret reached the apex of 9 Jules Chéret, Folies-Bergère/La Loïe Fuller poster craze, Jules Chéret harnessed and ornate text, Chéret began to his profession when he received the Émilienne d’Alençon, 1893, color lithograph, the techniques of chromolithography— develop his own style. He imposed a prestigious Legion of Honor, one of the photograph by John Faier, © The Richard H. Driehaus Museum, 2015 10 Jules Chéret, Théâtrophone, formerly a commercial medium used bolder, simplified graphic approach, highest distinctions in French society. 1890, color lithograph, photograph by John Faier, © for reproductions—and brought them and strove to integrate subject and text. It was a great triumph to be heralded The Richard H. Driehaus Museum, 2015 into the realm of fine art. Chéret was in his own time as a “creator of an In time, Chéret had revolutionized the born to a working-class family, the son art industry,” and to be crowned in use of color in lithographic posters, of a typographer. Though he received the popular imagination as the “roi departing radically from the dour no formal art education, he showed de l’affiche” or “king of the poster.” black-and-white prints that had long some artistic talent as a youth and Chiefly credited with elevating posters been de rigueur in France. He used began apprenticing for a lithographer to an art form, Chéret remains the first three lithographic stones to print in at the age of thirteen. For the next master of the medium and a presiding blue, red, and yellow, applying various seventeen years he studied the exacting figure in the field. His bold imagery techniques to add texture or surface craft of lithography, gaining nuanced and colorful style inspired a new interest. Taken as a whole, his methods skill with color and form. generation of artists—one in which culminated in dynamic compositions the other four masters featured in this After designing some posters in the that prioritized the image while exhibition played a crucial role. prevailing commercial model that balancing its text.

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8 L’Affichomania. The Passion for French Posters L’Affichomania. The Passion for French Posters 9 Eugène Grasset Alphonse Mucha (Swiss, 1841–1917) (Czech, 1860–1939)

Eugène Grasset designed posters in of media, designing medieval-style Born in Moravia (now the Czech a medieval style popularized by the furniture for Le Chat Noir (the famed Republic), Alphonse Mucha burst upon Arts and Crafts movement in Britain. Montmartre frequented by the poster scene in the late 1800s when He favored jewel-toned colors, intense Grasset, Steinlen, Toulouse-Lautrec, he became the favored designer for patterns, and black outlines that and other members of the Parisian the actress Sarah Bernhardt, then the emulated stained glass. His imaginative avant-garde) and imaginative reigning queen of the stage. compositions sometimes included tilted compositions for wallpaper, tapestries, Mucha worked in an immediately planes and oversized flowers in an Art stained glass, ceramics, and even recognizable style of entwined, coiling Nouveau style. postage stamps. He also designed lines and subtle colors, using flowing spectacular jeweled ornaments that Grasset’s talents extended beyond hair instead of vines in an were fabricated by Maison Vever posters to encompass all of the style, with gold accents for his haloed for the Exposition Universelle of 1900. decorative arts. He worked in a range figures, and Byzantine mosaic designs adding an exotic touch. Mucha preferred to work on an imposingly tall and narrow format to heighten the drama of his posters, often printing with two lithographic stones placed end-to- end to create his unique effects.

More than any other poster designer of the period, Mucha’s work was iconic of the Art Nouveau style, with characteristic sinuous lines and subtle colors.

11 Eugène Grasset, Coquetterie, 1897, photograph by John Faier, © The Richard H. Driehaus Museum, 2015 12 Alphonse Mucha, Princess Hyacinth, 1911, color lithograph, photograph by John Faier, © The Richard H. Driehaus Museum, 2015 11 12

10 L’Affichomania. The Passion for French Posters L’Affichomania. The Passion for French Posters 11 His willful disregard for traditional rules resulted in some of the most memorable images of this period.

Théophile-Alexandre Henri de Steinlen Toulouse-Lautrec (French, born Switzerland, (French, 1864–1901)

1859–1923) Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a central figure in Montmartre’s bohemian Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen was among nightlife scene. Born to an aristocratic the most prolific printmakers of the Belle family, Toulouse-Lautrec struggled with Époque, reaching a wide cross-section physical deformities from his youth, of Parisian society through his work in and found solace in artistic pursuits. He posters, journals, and a host of other studied with Léon Bonnat (1833–1922) printed formats. In his 40-year career, and Fernand Cormon (1845–1924), Steinlen produced an astounding 4,300 and in the process also became friendly images, of which only 37 were posters. with Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890). Steinlen depicted Parisians from all Toulouse-Lautrec settled in Montmartre, walks of life going about their daily painting his friends and a wide variety business, though some of his most popular of female models, many of them drawn works featured his red-haired daughter from the ranks of performers and Colette with the family’s housecats in prostitutes in the Parisian demimonde of advertisements for sterilized milk. Steinlen music halls and cabarets. His genius for based himself in the bohemian environs of capturing a vivid likeness, often in the Montmartre, working constantly. By virtue form of caricature, made him an ideal of his long and active career—which visual publicist for stage performers, also included music sheets, book covers, who were dependent upon public and innumerable journal illustrations— recognition for box-office success. His Steinlen’s images may have reached sympathetic, even tender, depictions of more levels of Parisian society than those marginalized performers and prostitutes, of any other artist of his generation. His and his willful disregard for traditional memorable design for Le Chat Noir rules of representation, resulted in some cabaret club is among the most iconic of the most memorable images of this of the era. Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, Le Chat Noir, photograph by John Faier, © The Richard H. Driehaus Museum, 2016 brilliant period of French poster art.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jane Avril, 1899, color lithograph, photograph by John Faier, © The Richard H. Driehaus Museum, 2015

12 L’Affichomania. The Passion for French Posters L’Affichomania. The Passion for French Posters 13 THE RICHARD H. DRIEHAUS ABOUT THE CURATOR COLLECTION

n 2003, the Richard H. Driehaus eannine Falino is an Museum was founded in Chicago independent curator to preserve and publicly exhibit and museum consultant. American and European fine and Formerly Curator of American decorative arts of the Gilded Age Decorative Arts and Sculpture at the (1870–1900). Today the Museum Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, she has is a stunning showcase for late created exhibitions and produced nineteenth- and early twentieth-century catalogues for many institutions. art and design, displayed against the Recent exhibitions include Crafting magnificent backdrop of the historic Modernism: Midcentury American Samuel M. Nickerson Mansion Art and Design (Museum of Arts and (1879–1883), which opened to the Design, 2011-12), Gilded New York: public in 2008 after an extensive Design, Fashion & Society (Museum of five-year restoration. The Museum is a the City of New York, 2013-17), New premier example of historic preservation, York Silver, Then & Now (Museum of offering visitors an opportunity to the City of New York, 2017–2018), experience through its architecture, and L’Affichomania: The Passion interiors, collection, and exhibitions how for French Posterss (The Richard H. the prevailing design philosophies of Driehaus Museum, Chicago, 2017– the period were interpreted by artists, 2018). architects, and designers at the waning of the nineteenth century and dawn of the twentieth century.

Installation of L’Affichomania: The Passion for French Posters at the Richard H. Driehaus Museum, © 2017, courtesy of the Eugène Grasset, Anxieté, 1897, watercolor, photograph by John Faier, © 2015, courtesy of the Richard H. Driehaus Museum Richard H. Driehaus Museum

14 L’Affichomania. The Passion for French Posters L’Affichomania. The Passion for French Posters 15 Installation of L’Affichomania: The Passion for French Posters at the Richard H. Driehaus Museum, © 2017, courtesy of the Richard H. Driehaus Museum

EXHIBITION SPECIFICATIONS

Number of Works Participation Fee Approximately 62 objects, including posters, ephemera, Please Inquire videos, and one kiosk Shipping Organized by International Arts & Artists makes all arrangements; exhibitors pay The Richard H. Driehaus Museum courier and outgoing shipping costs within the contiguous U.S. Curator Booking Period Jeannine Falino, independent curator and museum 12 weeks consultant Tour Requirements 2019–2021 High security; 3,500–4,000 square feet or 300–500 Publication linear feet L’Affichomania: The Passion for French Posters by Jeannine Falino, preface by Richard H. Driehaus, photographs by John A. Faier, published by The Monacelli Press, January 2017

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