Posters on Parade at Bloomsbury, 2

by Stephen J. Gertz

CAPPIELLO, Leonetto. Contratto.
Color lithograph, 1922.
Printed by Les Nouvelles Affiches Cappiello.

Last week's vintage poster sale at Bloomsbury Auctions - London brought some beautiful, striking, and unusual work into the spotlight.

CAPPIELLO, Leonetto. L'Oie d'Or.
Color lithograph, n.d.
Printed by Devambex.

We begin with examples by Leonetto Cappiello (1875-1942), the great Italian designer living in Paris whose innovative poster designs led to his being considered a father of modern advertising.

CAPPIELLO, Leonetto. Axa.
Color lithograph, 1931.
Printed by Devambex.

 

In contrast to earlier, painterly styles, Cappiello developed a startling approach with bold figures popping off  dark, often black backgrounds in stark contrast.

CAPPIELLO, Leonetto. Le Nil.
Color lithopgraph, n.d.
Printed by Vercasson.

Cappiello arrests attention, captures imagination, and holds the eyes hostage.

CAPPIELLO, Leonetto. La Tuberculose.
Color lithograph, c. 1930.
Printed by Devambex.

BONARD, J. Cafes Migora.
Color lithograph, n.d.
Printed by Azemard Cousins.

I don't drink it but I've love to wake up and smell the coffee if I woke up and saw this poster. Indeed, its electric, neon-like quality is so glowing I'd wake up, smell the whole world, and get a buzz from the colors, forget the caffeine. I've yet, alas, to find out anything about J. Bonard, its designer.

CASSANDRE (pseud. of Adolphe Mouron, (1901-1968).
Philips Television.
Color lithograph, 1951.

Adolphe Mouron aka Cassandre (1901-1968), the Ukranian-French artist, is, perhaps, best known for his 1935 poster design for the cruise ship Normandie, an iconic image. Establishing his own advertising agency, Alliance Graphique, he led the field with clever solutions to graphic challenges. And because typography is such an integral part of poster design, he also designed fonts. Above, an image from the emerging world of commercial television; the future is now.  But there's an unsettling, '50s sci-fi B-movie movie quality to the poster; cue the theremin, the future may not be as advertised. And, last time I checked, it wasn't.

LEVIN, M and TROYRVIKOV, V. Towards the Stars.
Color lithograph, 1968.

The space race provided opportunities for both the U.S. and Soviet Union to unify their respective citizens behind grand goals and inspire national pride. Until the U.S. eclipsed the U.S.S.R.. in 1969 with the first moon landing, the Soviets were ahead, proud, and prolific propagandists. I've yet to find out anything about Levin and Troyrvokov, the designers of Toward the Stars, but its image of a human space ship is simple, dramatic, and instantly memorable.

We switch gears into reverse, and travel further back in time...

ANQUETIN, Louis (1861-1932). Marguerite Dufay.
Lithograph in color, 1894.
Printed by Ancourt, Paris.

Who can forget Marguerite Dufay, the Parisian music hall trombonist, a comique excentrique entertainer known for her muscular performances? Work that 'bone slide, Maggie, 'great for the triceps!

ANONYMOUS. Veuve Amiot.
Color lithograph, n.d..
Printed by G. Bataille.

The above, anonymously designed poster for champagne Veuve Amiot, with its Art Nouveau and oriental influences, likely dates from around 1900-1910 before Cappiello altered the graphic design landscape. Cappiello later designed posters for Veuve Amiot.

GORDE, Gaston. Uriage les Bains.
Color lithograph, 1936.
Printed by Gorde & Boudry.

Forgive the whiplash but we snap back to the mid-1930s for Gaston Gorde's (1908-1995) unusual  Uriage les Bains, a hybrid of angular Art Deco and curvilinear Art Nouveau with a  hint of  Maxfield Parrish.

PAL (pseudo. of Jean de Paléologue 1855-1942).
La Peoria.
Color lithograph, n.d.
Printed by P. Lemenil.

During the 1880s, Peoria, IL was a major manufacturing center for bicycles, with the factories of Rouse Hazard Co. and Charles Duryea exporting bikes around the world. Just about anything stamped "Made in America" signaled quality. Little is known of lithographer and artist Jean de Paléologue, aka PAL, an American working in France. 

METLICOVITZ, Leopoldo (1868-1944). Fleur de Mousse.
Color lithograph, 1898.
Printed by Mouillot Fils Aine.

Leopoldo Metlicovitz began his career in 1891, joining the Ricordi lithograph workshop. He  became the firm's most prolific artist and, ultimately, art director, later offering his services to others. You can almost sense the aroma of the "foam flowers" that have captured and enraptured the woman in the image. It smells like ecstasy.

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Of related interest: Posters on Parade at Bloomsbury 1.

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Images courtesy of Bloomsbury, with our thanks.

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Hell's Angels In Paris, 1869

 

Bikers amok on the Champs d'Elysee atop wheels of fury...pedestrians scattering...the gendarmes on high alert. It's the Wild One, les Anges de l'Enfer à Paris, without the sullen attitude.

 "What are you rebelling against, mademoiselle?"

"What do have, please, kind sir?"

"Can you be more specific?"

"Horses. I would die for a set of wheels that don't need to be fed."

Vera got a velocipede. She was hell on wheels.
 

Bicycle mania hit France 1868-1870 like Jacqueline Kennedy hit Paris in 1961.
 

The charming lithographs within La Vélocipedomanie, a most scarce panoramic album, amusingly document and illustrate the fashionable craze for bicycles that swept Paris 1868-1870 as a result of the introduction of Pierre Lallement and Ernest Michaux's lightweight, rotary-crank, pedal-driven velocipede.
 

 Riding a velocipede was indeed a chic fad  yet one possibly accompanied by an osteopath in your future.  This bike was known as the "boneshaker" because of its rigid frame and iron banded wheels. Later in the century and at various times during the twentieth century, these lithographs were reprinted as individual postcards.
 

  
 La Velocipedomanie is exceedingly scarce, with no auction or worldwide institutional records found in ABPC and OCLC/KVK, including Bibliothéque National. There is a copy noted on a Japanese website yet it is incomplete, with only twenty-one of the twenty-five panels present.

The French weren't the only ones bonkers for bicycles. At the same time across the Channel the British were in the midst of their own mad passion for two-wheelers.
 

Velocipedes. London: G. Routledge, 1869.

The Velocipede. London, 1869.

 Gabriel Gostiaux (1838 - ?), the painter and lithographer who designed and rendered the plates for La Velocipedomanie was a contributor to Journal Amusant, Charivari, Surprise, and Fantasie. (Benezit).

Of F. Sinnett, the publisher of this series, we know little beyond the following:

"Aware that my countrymen are ever amateurs of engravings, lithographies, etc., I must repair the omission of having forgotten to mention Mr. Sinnett, the only English publisher of engravings living in Paris, and as he has an enthusiastic passion for the arts, accompanied by the most correct judgment, the selection of his subjects are such as cannot fail to gratify every person of taste; he also acts as an agent both for the Paris and London print-sellers, and by the arrangements into which he has entered, is enabled to furnish individuals with engravings of both countries on the most advantageous terms, foregoing those charges which it is customary to impose under similar circumstances. The English have it, therefore, in their power to procure from Mr. Sinnett any print, whether published in England or France, at a lower price than in any other house in Paris. His address is No. 15, grande rue Verte, faubourg Saint-Honor" (Herve, F. How To Enjoy Paris in 1842. Paris: Amyot; London: G. Briggs, 1842).

One hundred and twenty years after the publication of La Velocipdomanie at the height of bicycle mania, a new rebellion was taking place. And women like Vera were again at the forefront, this time, however,  as counter-revolutionaries. Astride their latter-day velocipedes, they were the only thing that stood between humanity and the apocalypse. Vera's great-great-great granddaughter rode point.

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[PANORAMA]. Gostiaux, Gabriel. La Vélocipedomanie. Paris, F. Sinnett, n.d. [c. 1868-70]. Small octavo Twenty-five aquarelle enhanced color lithographed panels by Dhartingue after Gostiaux, heightened with gum arabic, in accordian format. Each plate 149 x 105 mm., the panorama unfolding to 105 inches (2625 mm). Printed by Frick Frères. Original red pebbled cloth, with gilt lettering and decorative borders.

VELOX (pseud.). Velocipedes. Bicycles and Tricycles: How to Make and How to Use Them. With a Sketch of Their History, Invention and Progress. London: G. Routledge, 1869. First edition. Octavo. Printed and illustrated boards.

[BOTTOMLEY, Joseph Firth]. J.F.B. The Velocipede. Its Past, Its Present & Its Future. London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1869. First edition. Octavo, Blue-green cloth.
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Images from La Vélocipedomanie courtesy David Brass. Images of Velocipedes and The Velocipede courtesy of Bonham's.

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