Original Savignac Poster "Musee de l'affiche" 1978

Artist Raymond Savignac Year 1978 Subject Musée de l'Affiche, Paris — Opening poster Size 75 × 110 cm (29.4 × 43.25 in) Type Original vintage lithographic poster Backing Freshly linen backed Condition A — Overall Good, see pictures This is an original large-format poster created in 1978 by Raymond Savignac to announce the opening of the Musée de l'Affiche in Paris — the first museum in France dedicated exclusively to the art of the poster, and one of the most fitting commissions in the entire history of the medium. The image is characteristic Savignac: a poster that tilts forward in a gracious bow of welcome, as if the art form itself were greeting its visitors. No one was better placed to design this announcement. Savignac had spent thirty years making the French poster the most celebrated in the world — and here, at the inauguration of its first museum, he brought his signature wit and warmth to the occasion with absolute authority. Raymond Savignac (1907–2002), born in Paris and largely self-taught, is the most beloved French affichiste of the post-war era — the direct heir of Cassandre's graphic rigour and Chéret's popular joy, reimagined for a generation that wanted humour as well as beauty. His posters for Monsavon, Bic, Air France, Gitanes and Perrier transformed everyday commercial advertising into an art form of extraordinary economy and wit: a single image, a single idea, delivered with a boldness of colour and a gentleness of spirit that made his work immediately recognisable across a continent. He worked until his nineties, received the Grand Prix National des Arts Graphiques in 1982, and in 2003 — one year after his death — the Musée de l'Affiche that this very poster announced was renamed the Musée de la Publicité in his honour. This poster occupies a unique place in Savignac's oeuvre — it is not an advertisement for a product, but a celebration of his own art form: the poster announcing the museum of the poster, designed by the man who had done more than anyone alive to make that art form worth celebrating. It is a document of a singular cultural moment, and a self-portrait of a master at the height of his powers. The poster has been freshly linen backed — the gold standard of vintage poster conservation, see pictures for details. A poster about posters, by the greatest poster artist of his generation — at the moment France decided its art form deserved a museum.