Advertising posters in the Louwman Museum

On the first floor of the Louwman Museum you will find the Art Gallery. Here, among other things, the Art Nouveau and Art Deco advertising posters are on display. The products of the automotive industry are elevated to art.

This article explains why this medium was chosen as advertising and promotion for the automobile industry.
Thanks to the invention of a new form of lithography, the so-called three-stone chromolithography, it became possible in the late 19th century to produce printed matter in large runs using the basic colors green, red, and blue. It was a planographic printing method using a chemical process, based on the fact that oil and water repel each other. Separate impressions had to be made for each color, but even so, the printed material could be produced cheaply and quickly. As a result, the poster was no longer a luxury item for the elite but a cheap product accessible to everyone. Countless people could admire the lithographic images wherever they were displayed. Instead of carefully viewing a painting in a museum, people would quickly, in passing, cast a glance at what was in fact an advertisement.

The popularity of advertising posters took off when the successful Czech artist Alphonse Mucha announced the performance of the French actress Sarah Bernhardt and her play Gismonda in 1894 by means of a poster. The sensual image led to the posters being torn from the advertising columns, and the bill posters were even bribed so people could obtain the image and hang it up at home.

Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939) 'Gismonda' 1894, chromolithograph 216 x 74.2 cm. Alphonse Mucha Museum, Prague.

Mucha's completely 'new style' was called Art Nouveau. This style is characterized by stylized natural forms surrounded by flowers and plants with curling lines or arabesques. Most prominent in the images are the elegant idealized (female) figures. A commission from Moet & Chandon champagne soon followed for Mucha. It was therefore not long before other printing houses began receiving commercial commissions for the artists they employed.

As the makers of the latest invention that stood for modernity and progress, the car manufacturers naturally could not afford to be left behind!

The same was true in a sense for, for example, organizers of car shows. The general public could marvel at the different brands that they only knew from posters.

Art Nouveau poster in the style of Mucha; announcement of the 1907 Paris Auto Show. George Antoine Rochegrosse (1859-1938). Printed by J. Barreau in Paris. On display at the Louwman Museum.

On the posters of the car brands, what is being sold is more a lifestyle than the product itself. The ladies were just as enchanting as a car! However, some clients felt that while women had traditionally stood for emotion and nature, men were a better "image" for the car. This shift can clearly be seen in the Art Gallery on the announcement of the Italian car exhibition of 1907, "Mostra del Ciclo e dell’Automobile Milano," designed by Leopoldo Metlicovits. We see a winged seraph (heavenly being) carrying a laurel wreath next to a serious-looking driver in a roadster. This poster was produced by the Ricordi printing house in Milan. The company had originally been a music publisher for Puccini and Verdi and, since 1895, owned a new German lithographic press and employed the best artists.

Leopoldo Metlicovits (1868-1944), Mostra del ciclo e dellautomobile Milano 1907, printed by Ricordi in Milan. On display at the Louwman Museum.

The fact that this poster conveys a very different atmosphere from the French Art Nouveau posters is related to the Italians having their own distinct art movement between 1909 and 1917: Futurism, whose aim was to propel Italy into modernity in one single leap. Futurism originated in the manifesto of Filippo Tomasso Marinetti (1876-1944) and aggressively rejected the past, such as classical antiquity and museums. Everything now had to be fast and "dangerous." The paintings are largely abstract and express this sense of speed. A well-known Futurist painting is "Velocita astratta" ("Abstract Speed") from 1913 by Giacomo Balla.

'Abstract speed', Giacomo Balla (1871-1958), 1913, oil on canvas, Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli, Turin, Italy.

The horrific reality of the First World War, initially hailed by the Futurists, nevertheless brought an end to this art movement. In the Futurist style, natural elements and flowing lines disappeared, already tending toward the clean lines of the Art Deco of the 1920s. This Art Deco introduced a symmetrical and streamlined design style. The women on posters from this period are emancipated, once again sitting behind the wheel themselves, and were now seen as a target audience for buying a car. A striking example of this style can be seen in the poster by the well-known French artist Rene Vincent, an advertisement for the car brand Georges Irat, which has long since ceased to exist. This poster in fact tells more of a short, suggestive story, intended to spark the imagination of the viewer (at that time). Another good example of this is the Shell poster in the Kunstzaal.

Left: 'The leader all ways', Alexis Kow (1900-1978) Right: 'Georges Irat', Rene Vincent (1879-1936), both on display at the Louwman Museum

After the First World War, the automobile industry experienced a strong revival, with advertising playing an even more important role than it had in the past. For example, Fiat, as the largest car manufacturer in Europe, was the first to have its own advertising department. Outdoor advertising by means of posters had by then become a proven concept and once again demonstrated its effectiveness. The Art Deco posters still suggest that the car in general was regarded as a luxury product in an era of glitter and glamour, with a particular emphasis on freedom of movement (read: travel).

The Second World War brought an end to this art and design movement. In 1968, however, Art Deco experienced a revival, partly thanks to the publication of the book 'Art Deco of the 20s and 30s' by Bevis Hillier. He was also the first to use the term 'Art Deco'; previously it was called 'Art Moderne'.

In summary, it can be said that the development of the style of advertising posters evolved from the sweet, gentle Art Nouveau to the aggressive Italian Futurism, and then to the universal design of Art Deco. Art Nouveau and Futurism were cut short by the First World War, and Art Deco by the Second World War. All styles reflected the modernity of their period. The automobile was on the rise during the Art Nouveau period (1890-1910). The car was central in the era of Futurism (1909-1917) and was prominent in the Art Deco era (1920-1940).

Practically all car manufacturers used advertising posters as a promotional tool because they could be produced relatively quickly and cheaply, and therefore could be used on a large scale to reach virtually every potential car buyer. The posters were enthusiastically received from the very beginning and have never lost their popularity. Which poster manufacturer from the 1920s could ever have imagined that his work would one day hang on the wall of a museum?

At the Louwman Museum you can admire numerous posters and other so called automobilia, created by various prominent artists depicting and promoting many different brands.

Editorial Louwman Museum

With thanks to Joan M. Smient

Sources

'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction', Walter Benjamin, originally published in Zeitschift fur Socialforschung, 1936

'Art Nouveau and the Erotic', Ghislaine Wood, V&A Publications, 2000

'Alphonse Mucha' Celebrating the creation of the Mucha Museum, Prague., Mucha Ltd in association with Malcolm Saunders Publishing Ltd, 2000.

'Futurist Manifesto' English translation in 'Art in Theory 1900-1990, an anthology of changing ideas' edited by Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, first published in 1992, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK.

Note I; there is a copyright on the image of 'Velocita Astratta' from the Pinacoteca Agnelli!