The Complete "Masters of the Poster"

All 256 Color Plates from "Les Maîtres de l'Affiche"

Stanley Appelbaum

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780486263090
• eBook ISBN: 9780486134581
• Topic: Design
• Subtopic: European Art

Les Maîtres de l'Affiche (The Masters of the Poster) is one of the most prestigious and influential art publications in history. Its 256 color plates have preserved for each succeeding generation a wide- ranging selection of outstanding posters from the turn of the century, when the popular art form had reached its first peak. This Dover edition is the first complete republication of the legendary Maîtres set to devote a full large page to each plate.
Les Maîtres de l'Affiche was issued as separate numbered sheets measuring 11 1/4 x 15 1/2 inches. Every month for 60 months, from December 1895 through November 1900, subscribers received a wrapper containing four consecutively numbered poster reproductions. On 16 occasions, the monthly wrapper also contained a bonus plate, not a poster reproduction but a specially created art lithograph. Jules Chéret, father of the modern poster, emerged with the lion's share of the plates, 60 of the 240 numbered poster reproductions and 7 of the 16 unnumbered bonus plates. Of the 97 artists represented in Les Maîtres de l'Affiche, some were preeminent painters and printmakers at various stages of their careers: Toulouse-Lautrec, Denis, Bonnard, Vallotton, Puvis de Chavannes. Others were famous illustrators and cartoonists of the period, still well known to art collectors and bibliophiles: Forain, Caran d'Ache, Ibels, Willete, Boutet de Monvel, Léandre. But there were also all those whose names say "poster," the conquering pioneers of the new medium: Chéret himself, Mucha, Steinlen, the Beggarstaffs, Grasset, Penfield, Parrish, Bradley, and Hardy.
This edition reproduces the plates in their original numerical sequence, one to a page, retaining the standardized tan border introduced by the editors of Les Maîtres. The bonus plates, originally unnumbered and issued at various times, have been given the letters A through P and have been placed at the end of the volume. The List of Plates indicates the exact months in which Maîtres subscribersreceived these bonus plates. In order to keep the plate pages uncluttered, the captions on those pages have been limited to plate number (or letter) and the artist's name. The List of Plates also furnishes essential data on the original full-sized posters: their dimensions, the year in which they were first published, city of publication, and specific print shop responsible. A special Dover feature, which is almost certainly a first ever, is a full literal translation of the text of all posters printed in a language other than English. These are all new direct translations from French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Czech, and Hungarian.

Alphabetical List of Artists

F HUGO D’ALÉSI (French, born in Romania; 1849–1906): Plates 66, 171. Noted for posters, especially those with travel subjects commissioned by railroad lines

LOUIS ANQUETIN (French; 1861–1932): Plate 150. Pupil of Manet; independent, influenced by Degas and van Gogh; painted portraits, figures, scenes, designed tapestry, cartoons; produced a few lithographs.

FERDINAND BAC (original surname Bach, German, naturalized French; 1859–1952); Plate 19. Frequent contributor to Parisian humor magazines; several posters for the singer and diseuse Yvette Guilbert; writer of varied books illustrated by himself.

E. BARCET: Plate 203. Possibly Emmanuel Bercet, a French draftsman and etcher who exhibited in Paris early in the twentieth century

ÁRPAD BASCH (Hungarian; 19th century): Plate 208. After art study in Budapest, Munich and Paris, he contributed many drawings to illustrated magazines.

THE BEGGARSTAFFS: Plate 16, 63, 107, 168, 184, 232. Under this double pseudonym, Nicholson and Pryde created the modern woodcut poster, with clear outlines and large expanses of flat color

SIR WILLIAM NICHOLSON (English, 1872–1949), renewer of the English woodcut tradition; painter, especially of portraits, costume designer

JAMES PRYDE (Scottish, 1866–1941); painter and wood engraver

EMILE BERCHMANS (Bel...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Publisher’s Note
• List of Plates
• Alphabetical List of Artists