I Desire Vintage Posters
438 King Street West, Suite 1607
Toronto, Ontario M5V 3T9
Canada
Phone/Fax:(416) 977-7932
By Appointment
Email: vintageclark@gmail.com
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Here’s how the vintage poster love affair began–an email arrived in our mailbox June 10, 2019 from a first time visitor:
“I’m intrigued by this Massey Ferguson poster that you have. I have not really been able to find much information on the artist, J.C. Rousseau other than it looks like he may have designed some cigarette ads in the 60s and 70s as well. Can you tell me anything more about him?” Continue reading
http://www.idesirevintageposters.com/transportation-far-east-sas-cranes-1959.html
With this shout-out about vintage posters that seem to be missing in action, we hearken to the signs of the time, inasmuch as travel has never been such a magnet as it is now. The styles of such events comprise a stunning range–from airbnb couch surfing to grand cruises and palatial hotels. Moreover, prodigious distances covered by extreme youth and extreme age have become commonplace. No time nor money to “waste” on old lithos? Let’s see.
With those unprecedented numbers of travellers, we wonder how the travel and transportation art of the past, in our inventory, might add depths for wayfarers and jet-setters alike.
For instance, our first gem has much to offer in its sensuousness and coloration, only coming to special elegance and fascination by the powers of lithography, multiplying the tonality of a view. The tiny stature of the plane accentuates the royalty of the cranes, and yet leaves an aura you might never appreciate otherwise. The foliage and the misty lake bring to bear real mystery, seldom if ever, coming through a phone or any camera.
http://www.idesirevintageposters.com/artistic-magazines-fortune-march-1937.html
Our business could well be described as providing wall decor. The virtues of vintage poster design tended to strut-their-stuff on large surfaces, to be glued to outdoor walls. These productions were not to be sneezed at, inasmuch as the talent pool, first seen in Paris, was very accomplished. It is this uprising which seduced urban decorators to turn to lithographic resources as distinct from paintings.
All well and good, of course. But the same folks who dazzled the populous by way of first-rate posters, were also very active in producing smaller-scale lithographic promotions–in theatre programs, magazine covers and illustrations, wine catalogues, pochoirs, menus, etc. Although the quality of these items was generally as sharp as the very best posters, the aesthetes of the time (and right up to our own time) could, for the most part, not bring themselves to find serious interest in small illumination.
Therefore, today we’d like to introduce our enthusiasm for this work. Our first gem, by posterist-giant, A. M. Cassandre, finds him in a Surrealist mood, having left France for work in New York, as the guns of war were imminent in Europe.
Please visit added Fortune illus. by Cassandre: Surrealist Graphic Design Gallery
http://www.idesirevintageposters.com/entertainment-new-york-worlds-fair-1939.html
Here at I Desire Vintage Posters, we have always carefully chosen, for our site, imagery that excites us and would seem to be attractive to many others. But, sometimes, we will have on hand fine vintage posters which the world seems to be able to ignore. Today’s vintage graphic art blog takes a close look at these items we are delighted to be able to closely touch base with; but, still having a concern that they didn’t click after several years.
Our first gem, displaying such a warm welcome and expert composition, pertains to the iconic World’s Fair, in New York, in the dramatic year of 1939. The theme was “The World of Tomorrow,” as especially spotlighted by the edifices of the Trylon and the Perisphere, housing dioramas, called, “Democracy,” and, “Utopian City of the Future.” Continue reading
http://www.idesirevintageposters.com/travel-londons-offer-1938.html
There is a glut of movie posters, although you can’t have too many vintage movie posters as created by the astonishing Stenberg brothers, who rocked in the early years of Soviet Russia. (And, of course, there is a pantheon of great vintage lithographic movie posters from all over the world.)
Although we have never paid much attention to acquiring vintage movie posters (the Stenberg’s being prohibitively expensive), we have had, from our early days, a strong commitment to live theatre promotions. A large percentage of vintage general-trade-enticement has deployed theatrical motifs to create a buzz for the product or service. But here we want to discover if the moments in face of the footlights provide a unique intensity and elegance.
Our first example, “That’s the Ticket,” provides a vivacious array of props, by means of which to preview the range of drama being lavished upon us by the company. In providing clues to the night on the town, the wit and mystery, to be offered, somehow goes beyond what a single image can do. Continue reading
http://www.idesirevintageposters.com/art-deco-rarities-deco-sleigh-c.1920.html
In addition to the seduction of its forces on behalf of selling a product or service, vintage graphic art frequently shines a light on the future. How so? The optical resources of excitement in first-rate promotional work, in fact, move beyond easy, explicable pleasure, in order to induce an aura of mystery giving us pause. We may not explicitly recognize that addition, but it does allow of comprehension.
For instance, that little (you might say inconsequential) pochoir Christmas card, being our first instance, slightly distorts the figures, in order to facilitate recognition of a dynamic transcending, satisfactorily pleasurable. The tree-branch legs of the trio of sleigh-steeds become family to those birch tree branches. That the passengers chord with the aforementioned sticks develops a harmony while snowbound. The red sleigh, therefore, becomes an agency compelled to going for broke.
Such a delivery has been famously described as “art deco.” But long before the term took hold, the phenomenon had been an enticing feature.
http://www.idesirevintageposters.com/circus-african-riders.html
We’re bombarded by the exigency to move vigorously. Shine in motion, or stay in your room. The fascination of sports largely calls upon feats of sizzling motion. Look closely of a big city’s denizens coming to or going from work, and you will be treated to a cat walk of the powerfully coordinated, including wielding their phones. Why does this speak to us? Let’s let the vintage graphics in our collection cast some light on the subject.
If you’ve been keeping track of where theatre is going in the 21st century, you’ll have noticed that much of the excitement pertains more to circus and dance than dialogue and literature. Our first plate indicates that, in the 1930’s, dynamic spectacle was already the rage—a means of defining vintage poster art as a sign of a change from the previous centuries’ demand for rational pinpointing.
Cover;12″ x 8 3/4″; 15pp. Original Printer’s Copy
Far from good (and too dull to be naughty), our Christmas vintage graphic design blog is not without collateral interest. The writer, John F. Hayes, claims to be putting into print what began as his original improv bedtime stories for his children. But he has obviously rejigged the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer material (without attribution, as if Gene Autry stole his genius), with catastrophic results. The author shows a misfit effecting the supposed urgency to cover the globe with pretty snow for a supposed world-wide keening about freezing, and from this non-starter he disappears, as if caught up in a tar-baby, babbling with verbose and dry lostness. (“A few minutes later, Jumpet was brought from his room. Snowscatter reached out and patted his little head. ‘You are not here to be scolded again, Jumpet. But you are the only elf who can [joy-] ride a reindeer, and we want you to lead the Snowmakers tonight!’ “)
http://www.idesirevintageposters.com/publishing-ladies-home-journal-dec-1941.html
Proceeding with the link of graphic art and literature, after the disappearance of the Belle Epoque and its internationally galvanized Romanticism, we find an intriguing change on the move. Gone are the rather precious, elaborate garments and the sense of revolutionary insurrection; in its place are more circumspect, easy-going dispositions negotiating a diversity of enthusiasms.
Our first vintage poster enticing the purchase of a publication (namely, “The Ladies Home Journal,”) pertains to the secular goods displayed in the Christmas number, and the smartest ways to celebrate. Right at the moment when America was about to enter World War II, the priority of creature comforts still loomed large. Especially with this design, we can discern the embrace of movies, perhaps Disney productions.
http://www.idesirevintageposters.com/publishing-le-courrier-francais-1894.html
Books still get read (never mind the statistics), but, graphic art no longer seriously joins the push. In the 19th century heyday of ravenous literacy, the subjects of celebrity, history/politics, and science/ technology seldom became a fervid interest. Nor was the enshrinement of “unforgettable characters” the name of the game. Fictional stories, on the other hand, being recognizably touched by what was known as “Romantic tone,” became staples for many thousands of neo-bourgeois thinkers.
It is the repository of discreet Romantic rebelliousness which formed the first wave of illustrative input in the circulation of widespread Western literature. Another aspect of this early modern phenomenon was that of premiering the novels (or poetry) by way of serialization in multi-purpose magazines. The covers of these magazines often comprised visual evocations of the literary payload.
We’ll begin this tracing of that compound with an extraordinarily provocative assault upon Age of Enlightenment prosaicness. Milady and her entourage proclaim themselves, without a word spoken, to be–appearances notwithstanding–hard at work with fathoming the instinctive priorities not likely to be clearing up the Industrial Revolution any time soon. But, as we’ll see in the rest of the entries, mystery itself becomes a triumph of sorts.
