Customer Reviews

The Complete "Masters of the Poster": All 256 Color Plates from "Les Maitres De L'Affiche" (Dover Fine Art, History of Art)

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An an interior designer and a collector of antique posters, I completely rely on this book. Roger Marx brings to us an amazing selection of posters ranging from whimsical prints to dramatic and romantic pieces as well as thorough information on each piece. Featured on the cover is my most treasured posession.

As stated, the book contains all 256 plates. But there is almost no informational material. If you just want to know what was included in this series, this is your reference manual.

For those interested in the poster or in Art Nouveau or in the history of printmaking, specifically lithography, this is an essential reference book. The "Masters of the Poster" portfolios were reduced size reproductions of selected advertising posters of the late 19th century and included works by Mucha, Cheret, Bonnard, Toulouse-Lautrec and many, many others. These reproductions were printed by one of the major lithographic printing houses of the time and sold as annual editions to subscribers. Many of these lithographs are still available in galleries, although expensive. This Dover book includes 256 of the posters which represents the basic subscription portfolio as well as the supplemental lithographs of drawings especially prepared for the subscribers. It is rare to find such a definitive work at such an inexpensive price.

Nice quality with large reproductions, nice heavyweight pages, and great color. Full of inspiring figurative artwork, graphic design, and lettering from a time and place when more work by hand and individual style made it into advertising.

i collect posters.
i love posters.
for some of the posters, this will be as close as i'll get unless i win the lottery.
a great present to your friends or to yourself.

This product is exactly as represented - a complete collection of the series in full color. Each poster had it's own full page and was well reproduced. I consider this a perfect reference resource for anyone interested in this series or classic poster art in general. Note, however, that as another reviewer stated, this item is pretty much just the collected posters....there is no real textual history about the works. Considering this product represents what was already a collected homage made 115 years or so ago anyway that is to be expected. Note that many of the wonderful smaller stone lithographs made for the original Chaix series are still quite readily available. I recently saw that Martin Lawrence galleries had some in their collection. While these items can often range anywhere from $1000 to $6000 individually, when galleries have their seasonal auctions, many of these plates can be had for as little as $500.