Before digital feeds and algorithms, advertising was art in the truest sense of the word. The great commercial posters of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were shaping culture, defining aspiration, and bringing world-class artistry to city streets. They were among the first mass media to bring world-class art into everyday life, and the artists behind them were among the most talented of their generation.
Today, these posters remind us that some of history's greatest works of graphic design weren't created for galleries, they were created for everyday people walking down streets in the cities and towns across the world.
What made vintage advertising so powerful and so enduring, was the collision of artistic ambition with commercial purpose. They were considered works of art, designed to stop pedestrians in their tracks. Today, they hang in museums and private collections around the world.
France: Where the Poster Was Born
It was in France, and above all in Paris, that the modern advertising poster came into its own. In the 1880s and 1890s, the city's walls became a gallery without walls, a rolling exhibition of colour, wit, and invention that anyone could experience simply by walking down the street.
Jules Chéret was the father of it all. A lithographer of extraordinary technical skill and seemingly inexhaustible invention, Chéret produced more than a thousand posters during his career, transforming a purely commercial medium into something approaching high art. His joyful, luminous figures, always in motion, became so iconic that they earned their own name: the Chérettes.
His influence on the generation that followed, from Toulouse-Lautrec to Alphonse Mucha, was immeasurable. When the Académie des Beaux-Arts awarded him the Légion d'honneur in 1890, it formally acknowledged what the streets of Paris already knew. Poster art had become art.
Among the most celebrated works of this Parisian golden age was the advertising for *La Fée Verte* by Absinthe Pernod Fils. 'Taste the true Green Fairy,' the copy invited, and in Belle Époque Paris, artists, poets, and bohemians accepted with enthusiasm. Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec drank it. Verlaine, Rimbaud and Wilde all embraced it. The list of devotees reads like a who's who of the era's most fascinating minds.
Absinthe was banned across much of Europe and North America in the early twentieth century, which only deepened its legend. This poster captures the moment before the ban, when the Green Fairy still wandered the cafés of Montmartre.
Italy and Germany: Speed, Modernity, and the Machine Age
As the twentieth century gathered pace, a new subject captured the imagination of Europe's commercial artists: the machine. The automobile, airplane, and locomotive became the icons of a world in love with speed and progress, and the advertising surrounding them reflected that excitement with extraordinary graphic force.
In Italy, Fiat stood at the forefront of this new visual language. Already one of Europe's great marques, Fiat competed on legendary roads such as the Mille Miglia and the Targa Florio. The Fiat Vintage Advertising Poster from the 1930s is a masterclass in Art Deco graphic design, using bold diagonals, a striking palette of red, white, and green, and remarkable visual restraint. The sweeping white line draws the eye from the iconic Fiat logo to the red motorcar below. Nothing feels unnecessary. Just the brand, the car, and the promise of speed. Fiat's advertising helped establish the automobile not simply as transportation, but as the symbol of a modern, ambitious world.
Across the Atlantic, American luxury made its own statement. In the 1920s and 1930s, owning a Duesenberg placed someone in an entirely different league. Purchased by film stars, industrialists, and heads of state, the Model J represented the very pinnacle of success. The Model J debuted in 1928, and only 481 examples were ever built. The advertisements that sold them are almost as rare.
Across the Atlantic: Selling the Journey
Not every poster sold a product. Some sold a dream. As transatlantic steamship travel flourished in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, great shipping lines such as White Star Line, Red Star Line and Cunard commissioned artists to capture something far greater than an ocean crossing. Their posters promised adventure, elegance, and the excitement of arriving in a new world.
Towering ocean liners steamed confidently across impossibly blue seas, while stylish passengers looked toward distant horizons with quiet optimism. For millions of immigrants, these ships represented hope and the chance to begin again. For wealthier travellers, they offered the glamour of first-class dining, grand staircases, and the romance of crossing the Atlantic in unrivalled comfort.
A Living Tradition
What unites these works, across continents, decades, and industries, is the belief that commerce deserves beauty. The artists and designers behind these works understood that capturing attention is easy. Earning it through genuine craft and visual intelligence is something else entirely.
At Elliott Best, we believe these remarkable posters deserve to be seen the way they were always meant to be seen. Carefully restored, thoughtfully remastered, and ready for a new generation of collectors.
Explore our Jules Chéret and Vintage Advertising Collections and discover the artists and their artistry that transformed commerce into culture, one extraordinary poster at a time.
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