The poster's development can be traced throughout the printed page as early as 1477 when William Caxton printed advertisements in England. Later, in 17th century France there was a ban on bill posting without permission and around 1761 king Louis XV had boards fixed against walls for safety that was the foreshadowing of the billboard. Although there are examples of early poster advertising, it wasn't until Chéret created his Tiepolo-esque works did it emerge fully.

Jules Chéret (1836-1932) was the first artist to print color lithographic posters in Paris 1866. There had been technical improvements in the lithographic printing process, which allowed Chéret to manipulate four colors to produce his first magnificent advertising poster Orphée aux Enfers. Although Chéret had started this use of lithography to create posters, it wasn't until after he returned from a stay in England did he monopolise on his talent, drawing his designs directly to the lithographic stone as Goya had at the beginning of the century.

Chéret studied at Beaux-Arts in Paris whilst working as an apprentice. He argued that posters were not a good form of advertising but instead made great murals, because of this Chéret became the first name in posters. Chéret found the streets of Paris his gallery and interpreted the great murals of the past for the public of his day.

Art historians and critics of the time drew attention to the explosion of colour Chéret brought to the streets. Soon other artists like Leonetto Cappiello, Alphonso Mucha and Alexandre Grün joined him as the use of posters to advertise products, events and travel spread from Paris to the rest of Europe. The posters were often placed on buildings, in railway stations, kiosks and just about anywhere the public could view them from and continued to turn ordinary streets into a blaze of wonderful colour advertising.

Explore our catalog to view works of other important early poster artists such as Leonetto Cappiello and Alphonse Mucha.

Postermania 2000 has published a definitive book on Jules Alexandre Grün's works by Alain Weill and Dr. Israel Perry.