Posters of Paris

Milwaukee

The Milwaukee Art Museum currently transports its visitors to nineteenth-century Paris with its feature exhibition Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries. Advertising everything from tony theatre productions to the licentious cancan, bicycles to cookies, brightly hued posters featuring bold typography and playful imagery punctuated the streets of turn-of-the-century Paris. By the 1890s, these artistic posters covered the boulevards like “magical vegetation”; they were seen throughout the city, posted on billboards, scaffolding, Morris columns, kiosks, urinals, in shop windows, and even pulled through the streets on mobile publicity carts.

Artist Jules Chéret was considered the “father of the poster” and a master colorist. His artistic designs inspired a generation of fine artists including Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre Bonnard, and Alphonse Mucha, among others who worked in an array of styles, from Byzantine and Rococo to Realist and Art Nouveau. More than one hundred poster designs from these artists comprise the exhibition, including a few that didn’t make it past the censors of the day.

Milwaukee Art Museum

June 1st – September 9th, 2012
700 N. Art Museum Drive
Milwaukee, WI 53202
USA

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