For immediate release

French posters of Berthon, Grasset and Mucha from the Milton and Paula Gutglass Collection

(Milwaukee) The Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, will be featuring a new exhibition that highlights the significance of posters from the Art Nouveau Movement June 8- September 17. The exhibition, French Posters of Berthon, Grasset and Mucha from the Milton and Paula Gutglass Collection, will open on June 8, with a gallery talk given by Milwaukee artist and collector Dr. Milton Gutglass at 6p.m. A reception will follow, at the Haggerty, from 7 to 8p.m.

“French Posters” features nineteen color lithographs created between 1894 and 1901 by artists Eugene Grasset, Alphonse Mucha and Paul Berthon. These posters were created at what was considered the height of the Art Nouveau movement in France. Art Nouveau was an international art movement and style of decoration and architecture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, characterized particularly by the depiction of leaves and flowers in flowing, curvilinear lines.

In many ways Art Nouveau was a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. While some artists welcomed technological progress, others deplored the shoddiness of mass-produced machine–made goods and subsequently aimed to elevate the status of the decorative arts to the level of fine art. The Art Nouveau movement brought art beyond traditional art forms to everyday objects and advertising.

Though Art Nouveau was considered a thoroughly modern form of decorative art, it was heavily inspired by the designs of the ancient Celts and the Vikings. Art Nouveau also borrowed heavily from art of non-European cultures such as Japan, China, and the Islamic world. Japanese woodblock prints inspired the dynamic lines, flat color patterns, and stylized organic forms seen in the posters of Art Nouveau.

Eugene Grasset’s posters were heavily influenced by his admiration of Japanese art. His impact on the formation of Art Nouveau is immeasurable. Grasset was Berthon’s favorite teacher at the Ecole Normale d’Enseignement du Dessin, and Mucha considered him his single greatest influence.

Grasset was born in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1841. Before turning to art, he was an architectural apprentice at Zurich Polytechnic. In 1871, he moved to Paris and began his artistic career by designing fabric and wallpaper. Grasset was also a printmaker and illustrator. During the 1880s, he produced commercial posters for a variety of companies. Encre L. Marquet (1892) and Le Trèfle à Quatre Feuilles de la Marque Georges Richard (1899), shown in this exhibition, are examples of his commercial posters created through a process of collage and lithography. Grasset also designed textiles, furniture, and dinner services based on stylized plant formations typical of Art Nouveau. During this period, he taught decorative arts at the Ecole Normale d’Enseignement du Dessin. It was there where Grasset mentored Paul Berthon.

Paul Berthon was born in Villefrache, France in 1872. Little is known about his life, because of his early death in 1909. Though heavily influenced by Grasset, Berthon’s work differs dramatically from that of his teacher. Berthon preferred pictorial designs with lettering confined to the top or bottom of the poster.

Berthon and Grasset also held different ideas about the depiction of women. These divergent characteristics can be seen in posters produced for the Salon des Cent, an annual exhibition that began in 1894. Two examples of these posters are displayed in the exhibition here; Berthon’s Salon des Cent, 17e Exposition and Grasset’s Salon des Cent – Exposition Grasset. Both lithographic images depict a young woman, only seen above the torso, holding flowers. Both artists utilize bold outlines and pale, careful color, but while Grasset’s maiden is modest; wearing a high collared and long sleeved dress, Berthon’s maiden is provocative with a low cut, shoulder bearing dress. Also, Berthon’s maiden confronts the viewer while the woman in Grasset’s poster has an averted gaze. Berthon’s interests in the sensuality of women lead him to create the iconic femme fetal. The creation of this female imagery was heavily influenced by Mucha’s posters of Sarah Bernhardt.

Alphonse Mucha was born in Ivancice, Moravia, now the Czech Republic, in 1860. He studied in Prague and Munich before moving to Paris. While in Paris, Mucha became the favorite poster artist of Sarah Bernhardt, a French actress of international acclaim. The lithograph Gismonda (1894) was the first poster he executed for Bernhardt and is featured in this exhibition. This poster launched Mucha’s career and earned him an exclusive six year contract designing all of Bernhardt’s posters, theater decorations, costumes, and jewelry. Mucha’s Gismonda was influenced by an earlier lithographic poster for Bernhardt by Eugène Grasset. Both posters influenced a generation of French graphic artists including Paul Berthon.

In 1909 Mucha was commissioned to paint a series of murals for the Lord Mayor’s Hall in Prague. He also began to plan out “The Slav Epic,” a series of paintings chronicling major events in the history of the Slavic people. This series took him 18 years to complete and made up the bulk of his later works.

By the start of the First World War the Art Nouveau movement had lost its momentum. The posters of Berthon, Grasset and Mucha were no longer prized possessions, and many of the posters were lost. During the economic depression that followed World War II many of the lithographic posters were used as wallpaper or wrapping paper. Though Art Nouveau’s lasting influence was seen in a variety of art and design movements, most notably: the Dutch De Stijl movement of the 1920’s and the German Bauhaus school of the 1920s and the 1930s.

The Haggerty Museum of Art is located at North 13^th St. and West Clybourn Avenue on the campus of Marquette University. Museum hours are Monday - Wednesday, Friday - Saturday, 10 am-4:30 p.m.; Thursday, 10 am-8 p.m.; and Sunday, noon-5 p.m. Free parking is available in the Mary B. Finnigan Parking Lot (enter on 11th St. through Marquette Lot J). For more information on the Haggerty Museum call (414) 288-3657.