Original Georges Braque Poster Casino Trouville 1979
Artist Georges Braque Year 1979 Subject Casino de Trouville Size 48.5 × 49.5 cm (19.1 × 19.5 in) — square format Printing Gold ink on black paper — rare decorative process Type Original vintage poster — posthumous edition Backing Freshly linen backed Condition A- — Overall Good This is an original poster created in 1979 after Georges Braque for the Casino de Trouville — a posthumous edition produced sixteen years after the artist's death, and one of the most visually distinctive pieces in his printed legacy. Two details set it apart immediately from everything else in a collection: its format is square, a rarity in the history of the exhibition poster; and it is printed in gold ink on black paper — a decorative process so unusual in fine art poster production that it gives the piece an almost jewel-like presence on the wall. The contrast between the golden lines and the deep black ground is extraordinary, and entirely unlike anything else bearing Braque's name. Georges Braque (1882–1963), co-founder of Cubism alongside Picasso and one of the most revered painters of the 20th century, spent the final decade of his career almost exclusively devoted to the theme of birds in flight — the motif that had come to define his late vision. The bird for Braque was never merely decorative: it was philosophical, a symbol of the soul in motion, of form dissolving into space and light. When he was commissioned to paint one of the ceilings of the Louvre in 1952, he chose birds — a recognition by the French state that this motif had become the signature of his vision. This poster, produced posthumously for the Casino de Trouville — a seaside resort on the Normandy coast, not far from the region where Braque himself had spent formative years — carries that late imagery into a format of singular elegance. Trouville-sur-Mer, sister city to Deauville on the Normandy coast, has a long and distinguished relationship with French art: Monet, Boudin, Courbet and Daubigny all painted there. To commission a Braque-inspired poster for its Casino was an act that placed the institution in that tradition — and the result, in its black and gold austerity, honours both the setting and the artist. The poster has been freshly linen backed — the gold standard of vintage poster conservation — ensuring the piece is stable, flat, and ready for framing. A truly singular piece — Braque's most iconic motif, in gold on black, in a square format that exists nowhere else in his printed oeuvre.