The mighty Thor

This time round, a new acquisition by another distinguished but little known  illustrator, Walter Thor: 

Polish by birth, Thor trained in Munich before moving to Paris and becoming a regular contributor to its thriving advertising industry. Here are some further examples of his oeuvre:

Is it just me, or is he really, really into tyres?

A night out in Montmartre

Well today we have gone up a notch artistically and culturally. We are in the heart of Montmartre, specifically at a café-concert, an establishment that was less risqué than the cabaret, but still light-hearted and all the rage. Even without the title, the sight of the Moulin Rouge in the background tells us all we need to know. Ranged before us are a bevy of popular singers whose names are detailed on another version of this card, but who have all faded into the obscurity of history.

The artist, however, has not. It is Jules- Alexander Grun, one of the most prolific poster artists of the era, with 135 to his credit. The use of a lot of black and red is one of his trademarks. Also very good at facial hair! The stippling is very typical of lithographs of the time, giving an easy sense of tonal variety. 

We really need to look at the back to complete the story of this one. You will see it was posted in 1901, but the Trianon theatre had burnt down in 1900 and therefore it is presumably an old card sent by Monsieur Roux to a prospective client. Although his scrawl is largely indecipherable, the occasional reference to wine suggests that he is giving Monsieur Fleury a rundown of his rates for catering to a certain number of people. Passage de l'Opera was a posh arcade which presumably would be able to provide posh nosh etc. The other interest of the back is that it is undivided, meaning that before 1904 the message had to be written on the front. Hence the disappointingly small picture! After that date, they started putting a line down the middle of the back, creating the format familiar to us today. Clever, eh?

Xavier Sager

Come on Giles, I hear you say- you're better than that. Straight in with the smut, eh?! Well yes and no. Whenever French postcards are mentioned, the usual reaction is a mixture of guffaws and elbow nudging based on all of them being pornographic. Whilst there was and is a healthy market for these, it represents only a small proportion of what was produced and I personally couldn't see the point in collecting them, but there will always be room for some slightly risqué images if one wants to represent what was after a highly decadent era.

Having said all that, the main reason for this being my first post is the artist himself, Xavier Sager. He seems to be almost unique in the annals of French graphic art in that he pretty much exclusively devoted himself to postcards. He signed thousands of them, many of the 'kiss me quick' variety, and yet almost nothing is known about him apart from the fact that he lived in Paris at some point. There are even two completely different sets of birth and death dates, leading to the inevitable conclusion that there may have been two artists of the same name. Anyway, keep a look out for him as he will probably crop up again from time to time.

As for the card itself, it doesn't leave too much to the imagination. It is a fairly standard dirty old man chases provocatively-dressed young woman scenario, familiar to all ' Carry On' fans in this country and quite a major genre in early 20th century France. Why pigs? They are certainly associated with sexual obsession and general naughtiness, and in this case seem to be referring to the lady's substantial posterior, but whatever other symbolism there may be it was regarded as just a bit of fun in those unenlightened times. I have also chosen it as a good example of lively illustration and quality colour printing, both parties decked out in classic early 1900s costume. Next time, something a bit classier!

 

 

 Beyond Toulouse-Lautrec?

You've heard of this guy, right? No doubt you will have seen many, many exhibition titles starting Toulouse-Lautrec and... In other words, he is quite literally the poster boy of Art Nouveau. If you want to understand what was happening in French graphic art in the last decades of the 19th century, then look no further. Or should you? I think you should. Clearly, the man was a genius and is still popular because he was the very best at what he did. However, if he epitomises the spirit of the era, he is far from alone in doing so. Thanks to the march of chromolithography and mass literacy, this was a golden age for commercial artists across Europe, with France at its stylistic heart. There are literally hundreds of superb but unknown artists from fin de siècle Paris whose work appeared on posters, postcards and other ephemeral items such as theatre programmes, as well as in the many satirical journals of the day. In this blog, I hope to reveal something of their work, and how it can give us some sense of the heady atmosphere of Paris circa 1900.

Now, being a collector at heart and longtime lover of late 19th and early 20th century graphic art, I naturally wanted to collect posters of the period, and whilst I do have a few, only having the resources of an ordinary mortal means this avenue is pretty much closed to me. Therefore I hit on the notion of collecting postcards to feed my passion. After all, collectors at the time went equally ape over these small rectangular pieces of cardboard as they did over their larger cousins. As well as being affordable, postcards offer the obvious advantage of taking up very little space, along with the pleasure of handling something over a century old. Posters tend to be created as propaganda, whether in order to sell a product to encourage the public to do something for the common good,  but postcards are more varied. Once they took hold in the public imagination, the range of subjects was endless, and the medium lent itself in particular to humorous digs at the great and good of the day. All that is before you attempt to decipher the message scrawled in haste on either the front or back of the card.

Looking into it, I discovered that the best postcards were what are called artist-signed, which helps to some extent when trying to locate good examples. I also found that, like posters, French postcards were, with some honourable exceptions, much more elegant and cool than their English counterparts. After all, Art Nouveau was a quintessentially French movement, although of course it found expression in many different forms throughout Europe. In terms of postcards specifically, there are some brilliant German examples, but since my grasp of the language is very limited and I can read French passably well, it seemed logical to stick to the one country. There are more than enough French artists to go round! So, here we go- the results of my ongoing collecting and research. Next time, an actual postcard!