History of Posters

1. History of Posters advertisers (particularly of events, musicians and films) Propagandists protestors other groups trying to communicate a message. A poster with twelve different species of flowers from the Asteraceae family

2. The Modern Poster • Dating back to 1870, the printing industry perfected color lithography making mass production possible. “Moulin Rouge - La Goulue.” (1891) Poster by Toulouse-Lautrec.

3. Lithography • Lithography: “is a method for printing using a plate or stone with a completely smooth surface.” Invented in 1796 by the German Alois Senefelder. • Uses chemical processes, allowing a flat print plate to be used, enabling much longer and more detailed prints.

4. Modern Lithography • Used today to produce posters, maps, books, newspapers, and packaging with offset lithography. • Flexible aluminum, polyester, or mylar or plates are used in place of stone tablets. The plates are covered with a photosensitive emulsion. A photographic negative of the desired image is placed on top of the emulsion and is exposed to ultraviolet light.

5. Desktop Publishing • Made it possible for type and images to be manipulated on computers. • The development of digital imagesetters enabled print shops to produce negatives for platemaking directly from digital input, skipping the intermediate step of photographing an actual page layout. Called computer to plate printing. City of Words', lithograph by Vito Acconci, 1999

6. Lithography and Art History • In the 1890s colour lithography became popular with French artists, like Toulouse-Lautrec, and by 1900 the medium was an accepted part of printmaking. • George Bellows, Alphonse Mucha, Max Kahn, Pablo Picasso, Eleanor Coen, Jasper Johns, David Hockney, Robert Rauschenberg, and M.C. Escher are a few of the artists who have produced most of their prints in the medium. M.C. Escher Waterfall, 1961

7. Birth of the Poster • Cheret’s "three stone lithographic process," a breakthrough which enabled artists to produce every color in the rainbow with as little as three stones. • 1870s in Paris:Became the dominant means of mass communication in cities of Europe and America, ushering in the modern age of advertising. Jules Chéret, “The Father of the Poster” In 1858 he printed his first color poster in France.

8. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec • In 1891, Toulouse-Lautrec’s first poster, Moulin Rouge, elevated the status of the poster to fine art. Poster exhibitions, magazines and dealers proliferated, satisfying the public’s love affair with the poster.

9. The Belle Epoque and Art Nouveau • The 1890s became known as the ‘Belle Epoque’ in France, a poster craze coming into full bloom. • The popular style became known as Art Nouveau: highly decorative posters that were based on elegant and flowing lines; and splendid and elongated figures. These romantic posters were in quite contrast with the simplicity of Lautrec's realist posters .

10. World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution • Propaganda. The war created the biggest advertising campaign to date, communicating needs of every combatant – from raising money, recruiting soldiers and boosting volunteer efforts, to spurring production and provoking outrage at enemy atrocities. James Montgomery Flagg, 1916-1917

11. Between the World Wars: Art Deco • After World War I, Art Nouveau’s organic inspiration seemed irrelevant in an increasingly industrial society. • Machine age style, power and speed became the primary themes. Shapes were simplified and streamlined, and curved letterforms were replaced by sleek, angular ones. Art Deco showed a wide variety of graphic influences, from the modern art movements of Cubism, Futurism and Dada. Vila, Emilio Exposition Emilio Vila, 1920

12. Post WWII: Offset Lithography • Most posters were printed using photo offset, which resulted in the familiar dot pattern seen in newspapers and magazines. • Posters became common, and after the war, the poster declined further in most countries as television became an additional competitor. 1972 Olympics Yachting Germany Otl Aicher

13. Culture and Politics 1971 Poster Advertisement"Chelsea National Bank"Artist / Advertising Agency: Peter Max Richard Avedon, John Lennon Solarised poster portraits of the Beatles 1967