Meet Edward McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954), the man who may have inspired such graphic design icons as Saul Bass and Paul Rand. This well-traveled illustrator was born in America, but thrived in Britain with his bright colors and clean lines…
Category Archives: 1940s posters
Gruau-some!
Rene Gruau (1909 – 2004), the Italian-born internationally renowned fashion illustrator, also got his creative kicks drawing up movie posters, as seen below in the fancy affiche for French Can Can.
Mining the loose artsy styles of Toulouse-Lautrec and others, Gruau made a name for himself throughout Europe with his simple, stylish designs. And if you’re really, really interested in his work, EMoviePoster has a few up for auction this week!
Hispanic Hirschfeld?
If you’re within eyeshot of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, you might want to check out the early 1900s caricatures of one Marius de Zayas, a Mexican illustrator who’s drawing style is strongly reminiscent of legendary Broadway doodler, Al Hirschfeld.
Señor de Zayas was a natural-born networker as he hobnobbed all over NYC back in the day with artsy pals, Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe.
The Essence of Cesselon
Following his higher calling in movie posters, it’s no wonder that Italian illustrator, Angelo Cesselon, later moved onto drawing portraits of saints and other religious paintings for churches since looking at his beautiful work can be somewhat of a religious experience.
I’m not sure if he was repenting for all of his past pretty Marilyn Monroe depictions — regardless, his many artful creations are for the ages. (via Dominique Besson)
Keep On Truckin’
Here’s some International vintage posters from two classic film noir trucker films, The Long Haul (featuring the heavy workloads of Anselmo Ballester, Georges Kerfyser, and Hans Braun, respectively, in order on the top row) and Thieves Highway (Boris Grinsson, bottom).
Rojac’d!
Before J-Lo and Ray-J, there was Rojac — aka Roger Jacquier, an elegant early 20th Century French movie poster designer whose work no doubt must’ve inspired his contemporaries, René Peron and Hervé Morvan.
Anyway, if you’re interested to learn more about this artist, check out Adrian Curry’s excellent post on The Auteurs website right here…
The Key to Movie Posters
Although The Key Art Awards for 2011 are not until October, I thought I’d jump the gun and feature some vintage key movie posters for your consideration…
Horseracing Movie Posters
Gertrude Stein’s grandson’s love for horseracing got me thinking more about the beauty of this colorful genre…And they’re off! (via ImP, Posteritati, MovieArt)
The Miracle of Martinati
In the past, you’ve heard about the infamous Italian trio of artists who dubbed themselves The BCM Studio (Ballester–Capitani-Martinati) — but I’ve yet to dedicate a single post to the movie posters credited solely to Luigi Martinati. So hang onto your hats, folks, because it doesn’t get much better than this…
Of course, if you want to be a true foglio aficionado, then do your eyes a favor and check out Dave Kehr’s enchanting-yet-simply-titled book, Italian Film Posters. (via Chisholm-Larsson and MoviePosterDB)
Movie Poster Museum 