Collecting 101

1.

The Birth of the Modern Poster

The poster first appeared in large colourful sizes in the 1860s. Prior to this, the town crier and newspapers were the most popular forms of advertising, with newspapers offering a small, basic, black and white woodblock image.

Jules Chéret, also known as the father of posters, was the first to explore and embrace the technical advancements of lithographic stones, realising the potential to print images in colour and in much larger sizes than those offered by the more traditional modes of basic black and white printing. After Chéret established his own lithograph printing company in Paris in 1866, there was an explosion of colour as posters appeared on every street corner. By 1881, they had become so widely used that a law was passed in France to stop them from being pasted all over town.

Their popularity quickly caught on across the world and posters became one of the most used forms of media to target the masses, promoting various political parties, recruiting soldiers, advertising products and spreading ideas to the general public.

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2.

Advertising Boom

As one of the earliest and most cost-effective forms of advertising, the poster provided a resourceful platform for commercial brand products and effectively created the advertising industry as we know it today.

Travel Posters

As modern travel became common, posters for the various modes of transport became widespread. By the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the train became the favoured mode of travel. In 1879, France planned 17,000km of railroad lines and Great Britain introduced over 100 railway companies. Keen to promote destinations and services, railway companies used posters to advertise towns and specific destinations on their rail routes, whilst hotels and coaches used the posters to offer their services for passengers upon arrival at stations. These posters can often be found on the secondary market, offering an insight into what modern travel looked like at the time they were produced.

Automobile Posters

During the same period, mechanics were creating the first automobiles. Whilst the first cars were considered very dirty, they were also hugely expensive and unobtainable for many, making them a highly sought after luxury product.

Automobile posters have become extremely popular as they effectively illustrate how cars have evolved over the last 150 years. These posters differ in style depending on their country of origin; whilst UK car posters usually only displayed the car, in Italian car posters everything is stylised, with the car becoming almost a by-product.

Posters were a popular medium to advertise the Grand Prix, like those André Delourmel produced for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In the 1930s these were mainly designed by the well-known car graphic artists Geo Ham and Robert Falcucci. Posters by Ham and Falcucci are extremely desirable and have become incredibly rare, some fetching between £15,000 and £20,000 at auction.

Sports Posters

Recognised as one of the world’s largest industries, sports advertising grew in the 20th century as tennis, cricket, car racing, skiing, fencing, horse riding and football became increasingly popular. The first Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 used posters to promote the event as well as the individual disciplines.

Skiing as we know it today first began in St. Moritz, Switzerland, after a Swiss hotelier invited a group of British tourists to visit during the winter in the 1890s. Its popularity subsequently prompted numerous alpine villages to promote their slopes, facilities and hotels through the use of posters, such as Roger Soubie's Chamonix-Mont Blanc poster promoting winter sports facilities, and ice skating in particular, for the Paris-Lyon-Méditerrannée company. These skiing posters can be found advertising many different resorts and destinations from Italy to Tyrol, France and Switzerland and effectively document the changes and developments within ski equipment and clothing, highlighting the evolution of a hugely popular sport.

Beverage Posters

Posters are an effective medium to promote beverages, and one can trace the evolution of tastes, styles and demand and how society generally views drink from the early 20th century to the present day.

The commodity was—to a large extent—just a bottle, so imagination and talented graphic artists were used to make the posters desirable, engaging and fun. Leonetto Cappiello, known as the father of modern advertising, used his clean, intensely colorful style to promote Champagne from the Associations de Vignerons Champenois.

Changes to drinks posters over the years have exploited prevalent fashions such as Art Deco, and women were also often used in alcohol advertisements to make the product seem more desirable. Advertising for absinthe, the drink banned in many countries due to its addictiveness and serious side effects, often showed an attractive woman extolling its virtues. 

3.

Style

The style of vintage posters often varies depending on where and when they were produced. Fashionable artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Alphonse Mucha, Théophile Steinlen, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso were often commissioned to design posters as a means of extending the modernist revolution in the fine arts to the applied arts.

For example, Divan Japonais, created by Toulouse-Lautrec in 1893, is a well-known poster featuring the auditorium, its stage and orchestra, and depicting the artist's friend Jane Avril in the foreground, joined on her right by the dandy writer Édouard Dujardin.

Many different artistic styles can be identified in vintage posters throughout the years: Some examples of these include the universally recognised Art Nouveau posters by designers such as Mucha, Art Deco posters by Adolphe Mouron Cassandre, Russian Constructivism posters from the 1920s created by designers such as Gustav Klutsis and Valentina Kulagina, as well as mid-century modern posters by artists that include Dame Laura Knight and Francis Bacon.

4.

On The Market

Vintage posters have become fashionable collectible items. The Museum für Gestaltung Zürich holds perhaps one of the largest collections in the world. The V&A, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and the Wellcome Collection in London also own an impressive number of vintage posters; with the Wellcome Collection housing 35,000 AIDS related posters.

Bonhams have hosted a number of auctions featuring vintage posters over the past few years, securing some impressive results. The Roger Broders Marseille, for example, achieved £10,837 against its original estimate of £5,000-6,000. Whilst some posters can be purchased for a few thousand pounds, like the 1933 Actors prefer shell poster designed by Edward McKnight Kauffer, price point is largely dependent on the subject matter of the poster as well as the condition.

5.

Collecting and Care

Vintage posters are collected for a variety of reasons and effectively show the evolution of popular culture over time. Over the years, they have become increasingly sought-after as more people, museums and institutions have realised the power of their graphics, created by important artists.

When collecting vintage posters, the most important advice is to buy what you like, and make sure that you secure works in the best condition possible. Often collected by subject, you can focus on a particular theme, such as travel, sport, or particular artists. Whether you are looking to purchase a vintage poster for your living room or if you are a budding collector, our specialists can provide tailored advice on all aspects of the vintage poster market.

Finally, keep in mind that posters were originally intended to advertise the latest trends rather than last. Most were printed on very cheap paper, so when buying posters make sure they are backed as this gives them solid support. Always ensure framing and that any restoration and backing are conducted by a professional.