Late Night Shopping at Sylvester Fine Art

About

October brings a brand new hang to Sylvester Fine Art with works by influential modern masters such as Salvador Dali, David Hockney, Jankel Adler, Henry Moore and Henri Matisse.

Due to the wonderful response from our previous exhibition, 'Original Artists' Posters', we  will continue to display a selection of pieces from the show, so there is still time to choose your favourite if you haven't had a chance already.

We will happily serve you an after work or post dinner glass of wine (or two) whilst you browse and make up your mind. If you are in search of something in particular and can’t see it on our walls or sitting on our shelves just ask because we might have it on our radar and be able to bring it in for you to look at.

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The Birth of the Poster

The use of posters to make public announcements is something that has been taking place for many centuries.  From the early proclamations pinned up on posts in town centres to today’s widespread and digitally produced advertising, the poster continues to play an important role in mass communication. The need to deliver a message to large audiences, quickly and efficiently has not yet been eclipsed by the digital age, despite its immediacy, and it is likely that the poster will continue to remain in the communication mix.

Although lithography was invented in 1798, it was at first too slow and expensive for poster production.  Most posters were made using woodblocks or metal engravings with little colour or design.  This all changed with Jules Cheret's ‘three stone lithographic process,’ a breakthrough which allowed artists to achieve the full range of colours with as little as three stones - usually red, yellow and blue - printed in careful registration.

Despite the process being difficult, the result saw posters produced with a remarkable intensity of colour and texture, with extraordinary effects and nuances that to this day, remain impossible in other media. The ability to combine word and image in such an attractive and economical format finally made the lithographic poster a powerful innovation, especially for commercial purposes. Starting in the 1870s in Paris, it became the dominant means of mass communication in the rapidly growing cities of Europe and America. The streets of Paris, Milan and Berlin were quickly transformed into ‘art galleries’ and so the rise of the poster ushered in the modern age of advertising.