No headboard necessary—a single poster makes a statement above a bed. MAGIQUE LOVE BIRDS by Milou Neelen.

Our team loves a good art poster, whether featured as a stand-alone piece or worked into a gallery wall. We hunt for them on our travels and even commission our artists to make special posters just for Artfully Walls! So, out of curiosity we did a bit of research to find out how posters made their way into the mainstream art world, and our findings have got us smiling ear to ear.

A Brief History of The Poster

The modern day poster emerged in the late eighteenth century with the introduction of lithography, a printing process that was cost-effective and allowed artists to layer color and imagery. Using this process, in the mid-eighteen-sixties, French artist Jules Chéret released a series of lithographs depicting free-spirited women, which became so popular that these lithographs were soon viewed as an integral part of Parisian pop culture.

It wasn’t until the 1890’s, however, that posters exploded in popularity. The exhibition of French posters in New York at the Grolier Club introduced Americans to the trend, followed by the 1894 commission of a promotional poster for a play titled “Gismonda,” by Czech illustrator Alphonse Mucha. As Hua Hsu writes for The New Yorker:

“Parisians were used to seeing posters in the streets and in shops, advertising theatre and cabaret, circuses and books, cookies and soaps. But Mucha’s “Gismonda” poster startled passersby, and made them covetous. Some people bribed the bill stickers responsible for putting the posters up. Others simply cut them down from the walls themselves. After Bernhardt ordered four thousand more posters, Mucha was famous. His rise was part of a poster craze that swept through Europe and the United States in the eighteen-nineties. Magazines, galleries, and clubs quickly emerged to respond to this appetite. At parties, women dressed up as their favorite posters and others guessed which ones they were. Posters even influenced the colors used in turn-of-the-century clothing.”

And so the poster craze had begun. Throughout the 1900s posters continued to rise in popularity, essentially bringing the art gallery to the streets. By the 1960s,

“more than a million posters were sold each week to the “visual maniacs” craving “expendable art.” Posters were cheap and abundant and, whether you preferred Jimi Hendrix or Che Guevara, an easy way to convey your sense of taste,” writes Hsu.

Today, posters remain a popular choice thanks in part to the trendy Scandinavian modern aesthetic, which incorporates exhibition posters into its pared down look.