Masterpieces of Graphic Design More than a century of graphic design innovation is on display at International Poster Gallery from September 15 through November 30, 2005 at 205 Newbury Street in Boston.
News-Antique.com - Nov 30,-0001 - BOSTON – More than a century of graphic design innovation is on display at International Poster Gallery this Fall, as seen through nearly 50 poster classics that trace the changing form of the medium from its birth in the Belle Epoque to Post-Modern experiments around the world today. The show opens September 15, 2005 and runs through November 30, 2005. An opening reception is scheduled for Thursday September 22, 2005 from 5:30 pm to 9:00pm. The reception and show are free and open to the public (please RSVP). A gallery talk on the exhibition is scheduled for October 19th at 6:00 pm. Hours are Monday through Saturday 10am to 6pm and Sunday noon to 6pm. The Gallery is located at 205 Newbury Street in Boston. Call (617) 375-0076 or visit www.internationalposter.com for information.
The show will launch with two other major graphic design events in Boston this September: the American Institute of Graphic Artists (AIGA) National Design Conference at the Hynes from September 15 to 18, and The Graphic Imperative an exhibition of sociopolitical posters at the Massachusetts College of Art from September 7 to November 11.
The color lithographic poster first appeared around 1870 when the art world was struggling to adapt to the forces of industrialization. Large, full color posters for the first time could be mass produced and widely distributed, and artists struggled to find effective and "modern" ways to use the new medium. Over the decades, poster design evolved from a disorganized and overly complex jumble of text and illustration to a refined and universal language of design. Often these advances followed, rather than led, the artistic avant-garde, but posters were always important as a method of mass communication and in educating the public's eye.
The IPG show begins fittingly with such masterpieces as Jules Cheret's remarkable Folies Bergere Loie Fuller (1893), which looks back to the Rococo for inspiration and anticipates Art Nouveau in its flowing lines and sinuous patterns. Toulouse-Lautrec truly elevated the poster to a fine art form with posters such as Revue Blanche of 1895, influenced by Japanese woodblock prints. An array of Art Nouveau masterpieces are offered, such as T.A. Steinlen’s Chat Noir; Giovanni Mataloni’s poster for a gas lamp company, Brevetto Auer; and a rare, highly abstract work by J. Thorn Prikker for a Dutch art show in Germany.
After the turn of the century, the avant-garde scene shifted to Germany, where Lucian Bernhard developed a spare style that stripped a design of everything except the object and its brand name. An "Object Poster" for the men’s store IF Reiser (c. 1910) is a fine example of the Berlin School’s approach, which was diametrically opposed to the organic profusion of Art Nouveau. At the same time, Ludwig Hohlwein developed an equally powerful but more decorative approach in Munich, which is evident in his 1912 Flugmaschinen – Werke.
The 1920s and 1930s were marked by the flowering of the many "isms" of Modern Art – Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, Constructivism, Surrealism
