Vintage Prints

The History of Poster Design

The vintage poster as we know it emerged in the 1880s, when colour lithography became affordable enough to flood city walls with art. Jules Chéret printed the first true advertising posters in Paris — bold figures, flat colour, enormous scale. Toulouse-Lautrec elevated the form with his Moulin Rouge series. Alphonse Mucha made it ornamental, defining Art Nouveau with flowing hair and botanical borders.

Within a generation, poster design became a serious artistic discipline. Art Deco followed in the 1920s — harder edges, geometric precision, the same visual confidence applied to ocean liners, ski resorts, and railway travel. Cassandre's Normandie poster and Roger Broders' Côte d'Azur advertisements set standards that still define the genre. The mid-century brought Swiss modernism: fewer colours, stronger typography, the International Style grid. This collection spans all of these movements, from Belle Époque Paris through to mid-century graphic design.

What holds these periods together is craft. Lithographic printing required hand-drawn originals. Getting the registration right across multiple colour passes took real skill. The best vintage posters are technically accomplished as well as visually strong.

Choosing the Right Format for Vintage Posters

Vintage poster designs were made for print — flat colour fields, crisp typography, bold composition. These qualities read most accurately on fine art paper, where the graphic precision of the original lithographic process is preserved. Paper prints are available in A3, 50×70cm, 70×100cm, and A0, with oak, black, or walnut brown frames.

On canvas, the surface texture adds warmth that suits the more painterly Belle Époque and Art Nouveau pieces — Alphonse Mucha and Toulouse-Lautrec compositions in particular gain depth from the canvas surface. Canvas prints come in 30×40cm, 50×70cm, and 70×100cm, with an optional floating frame.

For framing: black frames suit Art Deco and modernist prints. Natural oak complements the warmer tones of Belle Époque travel posters and Art Nouveau work.

Pairing and Displaying Vintage Posters

Vintage posters work well in groups of two or three with consistent framing — the graphic confidence of the originals means they hold their own at any scale. A pair of travel posters from the same era creates a cohesive statement. Mixing periods also works effectively: an Art Nouveau Mucha alongside an Art Deco Cassandre shows the evolution of poster design without clashing visually.

For related styles, explore our exhibition poster collection for museum and gallery prints from the same tradition. The Bauhaus collection connects through shared modernist design principles. For Art Nouveau specifically, browse our Alphonse Mucha and Gustav Klimt collections for individual artist selections.

All prints are produced in our Berlin studio using archival pigment inks rated for 100+ years.