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The Black Cat and More - Page 2

© Douglas Russell

Pal's posters are less commonly found than those of some of the other poster artists, but www.barewalls.com has a good sample of his cycle art, and www.barnesandnoble.com features several other posters also. Both sites offer his work at reasonable prices. An excellent variety of original work is available at www.parksouthgallery.com, but no prices are shown, and some originals on other sites cost several thousand dollars each. Whenever a site indicates that you should inquire about prices, you can almost assume that they are expensive and possibly very much so. Some sites offering expensive items will show prices by a letter, e.g., "A" may represent one price range, "B" another, etc.

Other poster artists of the period include Jules Grun (1868-1934) and Adolfo Hohenstein (1854-1928).

Grun began his career in 1892 and lived in Paris, where he enjoyed with so many others the nightlife of the Montmartre district, as he frequented its inviting cafes and cabarets. He was a very active illustrator for magazines and produced many posters for various products, as well as creating designs for cabarets, revues and shows at the theater. Most of his posters were printed by the printing firm of Chaix and Cie, the same establishment associated with Jules Cheret. Grun's posters are often delightfully gay and light. They are often quite colorful, with red seeming to be a particular favorite, although the artist's use of yellow and blue, as well as many other colors, is also distinctive. A particularly recognizable feature of his posters is the frequent appearance of large, thick, heavy, often wavy lettering to identify products or highlight the names of shows and locations of performances. Although much of his work that is offered on the Internet is expensive, both barewalls.com and art.com have a few of his posters available at reasonable prices.

Hohenstein, sometimes called the "father of the Italian poster," was a German artist who was noted for his striking opera posters. After working for a time with the Italian opera house, La Scala, he was hired by the Ricordi publishing company in 1889 to oversee a staff of artists, who created posters to promote operas. Hohenstein also designed postcards promoting operas for the same company. In 1914, Ricordi issued a commemorative set of seventy small lithographic plates, which celebrated the company's greatest posters produced between 1895 and 1914. This was similar to Cheret's work along this line in France just over a decade before. Hohenstein's opera posters are really quite impressive. The designs are finely drawn, clearly the hand of a skilled craftsman. Particularly striking in his work is the interplay of light and shadow across the image (e.g., see his poster for a production of Madama Butterfly), and his colors can range from the pure and delicate -- a certain fresh softness often distinguishes them -- red, blue, and gold are especially distinctive -- to the bold and dramatic (e.g., his poster for a performance of Tosca, where his use of red and gray is quite vivid). His figures are frequently sharp and detailed, too.

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