They serve as a multifaceted tool for advertising, a means of political expression, and a distinct art form. Currently, vintage posters are featured in the “Art is in the Street” exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay (running until July 6), which presents 150 posters that highlight a significant cultural trend from the late 19th century. These artworks, ranging from music hall promotions to tourism advertisements, reflect the leisure revolution and can be found on Morris columns or adorning walls made available for posting due to the July 1881 law that eased restrictions. The artistic potential of these posters quickly drew the attention of creators, with avant-garde movements adopting them and transforming the city into a vibrant open-air gallery. Curator Réjane Bargiel noted in the exhibition catalog, “The challenge to the hierarchy of arts is intertwined with the role that artists, and later advocates of social art, attribute to posters in promoting art and public education.”
This trend was soon accompanied by an “affiche-mania,” a fervent collecting craze fueled by non-commercial prints available in specialized bookstores like Edmond Sagot, the precursor to today’s Galerie Documents on Rue de Seine in Paris, where part of the collection was auctioned by Ader on April 2 and 3. Henri Beraldi, a writer and collector of late 19th-century posters, articulated this sentiment by stating, “Let us set aside the question of great art and lesser art; isn’t the ideal that art should be present in everything, even in the most ordinary objects?”
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