image; galerie fricker, paul colin (hand signed), 1971; stephan t for galerie montmartreNot only is Michelle Belle, our assistant extraordinaire, guest blogging on The Design Files all week - be sure to check out her out over there today...it's a tiny taste of vicarious retail therapy - but every Wednesday I include one of her posts from our Tumblr site. Quite frankly, this blog has turned into way too much of what la Femme is into, so we started another one that is authored by the Gen Y Wonder which is totally vintage poster focused and I love it!
Today's post is about two creative talents in two very different fields, both divinely determined and talented during one of my favourite eras.
One of the masters of Art Deco graphic design, Paul Colin (1892-1985) produced over 1900 posters, plus hundreds of book covers, theater sets and costumes. Inspired by Cubism and Surrealism, his designs were perfectly suited to the Jazz Age. Bold colours, geometric shapes and caricatured figures practically dance of the page.
Colin is best known for his work for La Revue Negre, a French troupe of musicians and performers, including the then little known Josephine Baker. Together they took Paris by storm, Josephine with her sensational ‘banana dance’, Colin with his colourful lithographic posters celebrating the energy and allure of this bewitching woman.
Using an image designed for La Revue Negre in 1925, this exhibition poster is seductive, sexy and simply irresistible. Jazz singers in the front, Baker swinging those famous hips up the back, we can only imagine the visual impact of a room of such designs. And oh to be there, among the glitz and glamor of the Jazz Age. I can tell you, I would be dancing the Charleston till the wee hours on the streets of gay 1920s Paris.
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