Category Archives: Movie Poster Collectors/Dealers

The Great Venturi

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One of my favorite all-time movie poster artists is the Argentinean illustrator, Osvaldo Venturi — who I didn’t even know existed until a year and a half ago when I stumbled upon his work in The Art of The Modern Movie Poster from The Posteritati Gallery in NYC.

Venturi’s elegant posters from the 1940s and 19450s are more like paintings than one sheets, filled with vivid, swirling bursts of color and large dramatic faces of movie stars (perhaps he was the one who invented the notorious “floating heads“).

The price ranges for these beauties are all over the map from thousands of dollars on eBay to just a couple ten spots on EMoviePoster if you get lucky. So, to paraphrase Ferris Bueller, “if you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.”

Up Close and Persona

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I’ve actually never seen Persona, the 1966 Ingmar Bergman film starring Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson, but if it’s even half as cool as these posters than surely it can’t be that depressing.

The UK poster was designed by famed Academy Cinemas linocutter, Peter Strausfeld, and the Belgian version (middle) comes via the impressive MyPosterCollection, which also features a nice selection of Japanese posters.

Slap-Happy?

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WARNING: This post is not promoting domestic abuse — but merely just highlighting a few strange illustration quirks from the Let-Me-Slap-Some-Sense-Into-You-Mentality of the 1950s. Funny how they expressed relationship drama back then. Can you imagine how focus groups would react now if they put out a one sheet with Leonardo DiCaprio slugging his female co-star?

In any event, here’s another Movie Poster Smackdown Slapdown! (Le Tumulte is by Boris Grinsson and 99 River Street comes courtesy of Paul Waines at the All Poster Forum, which you should join immediately if you enjoy the wonderful world of movie posters.

Essex Movie Posters

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Lately, I’ve been on an Argentinean movie posters kick — but don’t cry for me, Argentina…even though some of these country of origin posters do nearly bring me to tears!

And one of my favorite Argentinean poster artists goes by the name Essex. Wish I could tell you more about him (or her), but aside from the recognizable signature and a few listed credits on some movie poster websites, such as LAMP and Posteritati — that’s all I could find! But all you need is to take one look at Essex’s version of The Lost Weekend and you too will soon get lost in the beautiful haze…

(By the way, his John Hancock reminds me of the old Esso Gas logo.)

Reel Art Press Release

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While most publishing houses are getting spooked off by e-books, Tony Nourmand and the classy staffers at The Reel Poster Gallery in London are going gangbusters into the book biz with their offshoot, Reel Art Press, which will publish limited-edition, signed, and numbered movie poster books. So if you’ve got the dough, they’ve got the paper!

Their first releases will be The Rat Pack and Bill Gold: Posterworks.

eBay Deal of the Day: Timeless Books!

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A few years ago, Stanislas Choko, owner of the renowned Intemporel Galerie in Paris, came out with a handsome set of poster books featuring legendary 20th Century French artists, Roger Soubie (Martine Boyer, Pierre Bourdy), Boris Grinsson (Jean Segura), Guy Gerard Noel (Christophe Capacci), and Jacques Bonneaud (Claude Bonneaud, Erwan Serveau).

(FYI, Intemporel means “Timeless” in English for all you non-Francophiles out there.)

Anyway, I recently discovered on Intemporel’s eBay store that Choko has slashed 60% off the prices of each book down to $15 (or, make that 12 Euros from the normal 29)!

So no matter where you’re from or what language you speak, this is an absolute steal as these handsome little tomés feature some of the most beautiful French posters ever created in the history of motion picture art…and thus will most likely be the closest chance I’ll ever have to getting my hands on them!

At first glance, picking a favorite of these books is like picking a favorite child. But since I don’t have kids, I’ll have to say that I probably most enjoyed the Boris Grinsson book. But of course I’m a little biased since I’m a huge Grinsson fan and love a lot of the comedy films he worked on. So depending on your personal taste, it’s really hard to go wrong with any one of these treasures.

IMHO, here are my takes on each of these lovely books below…

B is For Boris

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The life of Boris Grinsson could be a movie. Born a Russian Jew in 1907, he abandoned his dreams of acting to become a designer in Berlin. But then after doing an anti-Hitler poster depicting the Führer as an archangel of death in 1933, the Nazis soon came after him and he fled to rural France with his German wife. For years, he survived doing farmwork in the liberated zone, painting frescoes in dance bars, cafes, and, yes, movie theatres.

It wasn’t until after the war ended in 1944 that he was able to safely return to Paris and his one true love: designing movie posters. He joined The Synidcat, a French publicity agency, where the established veteran, Roger Soubie, got all the “A” films and Grinsson did all the “B” movies. But Boris finally found his calling as he soon became highly sought after and never met a commission he didn’t like, as he covered pretty much every genre from animated cartoons and comedies to epic period dramas and action thrillers.

A year before he died in 1999 at the age of 92, Stanislas Choko’s Galerie Intemporel organized a retrospective of his voluminous work at Espace Saint Jean in Melun, France.

The First Noël…

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Guy Gérard Noël was born Guy Carré — but later changed his name to Noël because he was born on Christmas day (and also because I’m sure he felt the moniker gave him a little more caché as an artisté).

Although he is undoubtedly most remembered for his seriously spooky output on the Hammer Horror series of posters distributed by Universal from 1950-1973, I personally have always found his romantic drama pieces much more appealing. But that’s just me. If you really want to know Noël, then you must check out EatBrie’s scary collection or, of course, just buy the book.

After retiring to the French countryside in the late 60’s to illustrate books and record covers, Noël died of a heart attack in 1994 at the age of 82.


Soubie Special!

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While Boris Grinsson was busy doing all the “B” movie posters for The Syndicat, Roger Soubie was the A-lister at the firm. And his top ranking was well deserved as his finely depicted sexy sirens and sci-fi scenarios indeed put him on another planet.

Martine Boyer and Pierre Bourdy’s book showcases Soubie’s flamboyant style with splashes of color and insight, illuminating the artist’s substantial entry into the 2,000+ club. But as lithography was supplanted by offset printing and photography, Soubie met the same fates as those of his comrades, Bonneaud, Grinsson, and Noël, and moved onto other areas of travel and advertising design work until his death in 1984 at the age of 86.