Famous Posters

We see them hoisted on the walls of our favorite eateries, cafes, bookstores, and waiting rooms. Sometimes, we see them on gallery and museums walls. Little do we acknowledge the same images, over and over. They recur from one wall to another. Not until it's brought to our attention do we understand the cultural roots of these ubiquitous pictures-on-paper and their renown.

The more universally displayed the poster the more famous the poster.

Most famous posters noticed them in various restaurants, cafes, diners, public offices, schools, art venues, and - most astonishingly - dentists' and doctors' office...I suppose Dr. What's His/Her Name has a taste for fine poster art - Who'd have thought it?

Certain posters are staples among proprietors and collectors, making them some of the most famous posters to date. One can expect on his or her next outing to The Wherever Gallery of Whatever Kind of Art, posters by Jules Cheret, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Glen C. Sheffer to round out a handful of the most famous posters.

The two most famous posters of the late-nineteenth century period are Jules Cheret's Theatre de l'Opera, 1897 and (of course) Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's Moulin Rouge, 1898. Both posters share a great deal of similarities that you'd be hard pressed to know that they are created by two separate artists; both are created with three stone lithography, are brightly colored, and capture the gaiety of fin de sciele Paris. Theatre de l'Opera shows a woman costumed in yellow slightly embraced by a tuxedoed man behind her. The romance and whimsy of the poster depicts just what one would have experience at the opera in 1890's Paris - a night of unadulterated passion and surrender. Coinciding (and slightly contrasting) with Cheret's cultural pictorial, Moulin Rouge shows a lively, rustic scene at a dance hall; silhouetted people in the background give depth and contrast to a woman kicking her heels up in the middle of the dance floor; a gray-shaded man looks on in the foreground, as the woman takes the spotlight. In an almost disorienting fashion, exuberant energy and freedom dominate the focus of the poster. Parisienne nightlife and culture are prominent through these two famous posters of the Belle Epoque.

Another famous poster comes to us from the motion picture world. Countless reproductions of the 1927 Metropolis poster almost everywhere. An advertisement for Fritz Lang's 1928 film about a futuristic mechanized society and the class struggle between the proletariat and the elite, the Metropolis poster is done in black and copper. The word METROPOLIS beacons from behind the horizon of tall buildings; a gilded/galvanized womanly figure stands just below and before it all, with a cold, robotic stare. The poster's elements are ominous, cool, and grandiose - pure ambition and prophecy. As a famous poster, it far surpasses the notability of the film it represents.

As famous as the destinations they've traveled, the World's Fair series have given us many famous posters. But one specific poster instantly recognizable to me is Glen C. Sheffer's 1933 World's Fair Chicago poster. A woman in a breastplate (perhaps a Valkyrie) wearing a winged headdress stands atop the world; with a man of science below, the world of the past lies to her right, and, with a man of industry, the futuristic, space age world of tomorrow lies to her left. Airplanes and spaceship whirr past in circular swishes, as beams of light beacon from below. The glory of man's achievements shine with luminous vanity in this famous poster.

These are simply a sample of some famous poster you could unintentionally stumble across on your way to dinner or a dentist - hopefully not in that order. There are many more famous posters, and, no, they aren't everywhere, but they are enough places for you to notice them.