Jacques Nathan-Garamond

An advertising poster for Air France, designed by Jacques Nathan-Garamond.

• Jacques Nathan-Garamond (French, 1910-2001).
• Linen backed.
• This work is presented unframed.

Jacques Nathan-Garamond (1910-2001) was a French graphic designer. He studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs and was a director of contemporary architecture before his career as a designer. It was after the war that Nathan-Garamond became a graphic designer and produced several amazing works for prestigious advertisers such as Air France, Mazda and Telefunken.

He then founded the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) and was a professor at the École Internationale and a professor at the École Supérieure d'Arts Graphiques Penninghen. His work is in the permanent collections of major institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

France has a long and rich history in poster design that dates back to the mid-19th century. One of the most influential figures in the development of vintage posters was the French poster artist Jules Chéret. Around 1866, Chéret is credited with producing the first color lithograph posters, using a technique he refined from the black and white process first invented by German actor and playwright Alois Senefelder in 1798. Cheret's three stone lithographic process allowed artists to achieve every color in the rainbow using just three stones - usually red, yellow and blue - printed in careful registration.

The Parisian artists, headed by Cheret and including masters Steinlen, Willette, Grasset, Bonnard, Forain and, last but certainly not least, Toulouse-Lautrec's vibrant and eye-catching designs influenced, in part, by Japanese Woodcuts brought a new level of visual appeal to the streets of Paris and, in turn, established the poster as an art form.

The Belle Époque (Beautiful Era), a period of peace and frivolity in France from the late 19th to the early 20th century (1870-1914), played a significant role in the continued advancement of poster design. This era coincided with economic growth and the rise of a new middle class with disposable income and leisure time. It was during this time that the poster craze took hold in France, with posters being used for advertising various products, events, and entertainment.

Over the decades that followed from these auspicious beginnings French poster design continued to flourish and designers from around the world followed suit in experimenting with poster design for advertisements for cultural events, travel, film, food and drink and more.