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Consuming Desires:
Modern Marketing Posters, 1880-1918
June 26, 2005-October 2, 2005
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Consuming Desires: Modern Marketing Posters, 1880-1918, an exhibition of American and European posters dating from 1880 to 1914, features bold, striking and elegant images. More importantly, the posters represent a turn-of-the-century revolutionary marketing strategy for selling products and ideas to the public.
The French artist Jules Chèret invented this new art form in the 1880s-his were the first posters to feature colorful and striking images. By the early 1890s, the poster movement was an international phenomenon, and artistic posters promoted all sorts of products: books, magazines, art exhibitions and ideas. In America, posters predominantly advertised things from the literary world. Consuming Desires includes international examples from France, Belgium, Germany, and England, as well as many American examples.
Posters were artistic advertising tools designed specifically to be posted on walls and kiosks on city streets. They were meant to be attention-grabbing and to appeal to a broad public. Stylistically, poster designers tended to employ large areas of flat color defined by sharp outlines. This became known as the "poster style." |
The July Century, 1896
Charles Herbert Woodbury (1864–1940)
Lithograph on paper
Delaware Art Museum, Gift of Helen Farr Sloan, 1986 |
Posters provide a window into the artistic styles, fashions, and cultural debates of the day. Then, as today, "poster girls"-stylishly clad young women- were used to sell most everything.
In the 1890s, posters became extremely popular as works of art. Poster artists and publishers began to overprint their commercial editions and sell them through print dealers. Collectors acquired posters by removing them from walls and shop windows as well as by purchase. Collecting turn-of-the-century posters became popular again in the 1920s.
In the 1970s, interest surged again and continues to the present. The Delaware Art Museum is proud to share its permanent collection, gathered here for Consuming Desires: Turn-of-the-Century Posters and the Rise of Modern Marketing, for the Museum's inaugural exhibition.
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Harper’s February, 1896
Edward Penfield (1866–1925)
Ink on Paper
Delaware Art Museum, Gift of Walker Penfield, 1969 |
The Ault & Wilborg Company, c.1900
Willian H. Bradley (1868–1962)
Lithograph on paper
Delaware Art Museum, Gift of Helen Farr Sloan, 1989
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When Hearts are Trumps by Tom Hall, c. 1895
William H. Bradley (1868–1962)
Lithograph on paper
Delaware Art Museum, Gift of Helen Farr Sloan, 1986 |
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