Journal
The Found Poster Journal
Deep dives on single Belle Époque posters, surveys of the makers who built poster art, short histories of Art Nouveau and the cabaret era, and practical notes on printing and framing the work for a real room.
Deep dive: Casino de Paris (1891)
Jules Chéret’s 1891 poster for the Casino de Paris comes from the man who invented the modern colour poster. Two decades before Toulouse-Lautrec, Chéret had turned the Paris street
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Framing posters without glare
Glare is what makes a framed print look cheap in a bright room, and it has two cures: anti-reflective (‘museum’) glass, and placement that keeps the frame from facing a window or d
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Deep dive: The Chap-book / Will H. Bradley (1895)
Will Bradley’s posters for The Chap-Book in 1894–95 are American Art Nouveau at its boldest — sinuous black-and-white ornament advertising a small Chicago literary magazine. Self-t
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What size should you print a poster?
For a public room, 16×20 inches is the safe baseline and 24×36 the feature-wall size. But the right answer comes from three things: the resolution of your file, the wall and viewin
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Deep dive: Absinthe J. Édouard Pernot (1900)
Leonetto Cappiello’s 1900 poster for Absinthe J. Édouard Pernot is one of the founding images of modern advertising. Where the reigning master, Jules Chéret, filled his posters wit
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The best paper for art-print posters
The best paper for a vintage poster is an uncoated, acid-free matte fine-art stock of roughly 200–250 gsm, ideally with a slight tooth. It reproduces the flat, absorbent surface of
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Deep dive: Harper’s Magazine: Christmas (1897)
Edward Penfield’s cover poster for the Christmas 1897 Harper’s Magazine is a cornerstone of the American poster movement. As art director of Harper & Brothers through the 1890s
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How to print and frame a vintage poster
A vintage poster reproduces beautifully at home if you respect how it was originally made. These were large lithographs printed on uncoated paper, so they want a high-resolution fi
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Deep dive: Moulin Rouge: La Goulue (1891)
In the autumn of 1891 the Moulin Rouge commissioned a little-known 26-year-old aristocrat, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, to design a poster for its star dancer, La Goulue. His first l
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