June 1, 2012–September 9, 2012
Baker/Rowland Galleries
Beginning with the early designs of Jules Chéret—the “father of the poster”—the exhibition explores the earliest days of the artistic poster and its flowering first under Chéret and then with a new generation of artists including Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre Bonnard, and Edouard Vuillard, artists who brought the poster to new heights in the 1890s.
Posters of Paris examines the story of the French artistic poster in all its complexity. In addition to the posters themselves, this exhibition features rare preparatory drawings and watercolors, maquettes, and proofs to show how the artist went from idea to final execution. The show will highlight work and artists well known to the public—Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard, Cassandre—as well as artists less familiar, but equally as powerful in their impact on the affiche artistique in fin-de-siècle Paris.
Georges de Feure (French, 1868–1928), Paris Almanach, 1895. Color lithograph. Image: 31 1/8 x 23 3/8 in. Sheet: 31 3/4 x 24 5/8 in. Milwaukee Art Museum.
