Film Posters 1913 - 1929

From the 1910s through to the 1940s film studios developed their own artwork styles for their movie posters and used well-known artists and illustrators. The films were black and white but the studios recognised the attraction of colour in the publicity. 

Originally the posters were produced for the exclusive use by the theatres exhibiting the film the poster was created for, and the copies of the posters were required to be returned to the distributor after the film left the theatre. Very few posters from this period survive because the paper was recycled during the depression years and WW2.

1913 The Last Days of Pompeii

1914 Pierre of the Plains

1914 The Jungle

1916 Intolerance

1917 Cleopatra

1917 The Pinch Hitter

1917 The Pride of the Clan

1917 The Regenerates

1918 Over the Top

1921 A Private Scandal

1921 Sham

1921 The Off-Shore Pirate

1921 Through the Back Door

1922 Fair Lady

1922 French Heels

1922 Rent Free

1922 The Face in the Fog

1923 Black Oxen

1923 Fury

1923 Pure Grit

1923 Rosita

1923 The Speed King

1923 Where the North Begins

1924 40 Horse Hawkins

1924 A Sainted Devil

1924 Excitement

1924 That French Lady

1924 The Flaming Crisis

1924 Three Weeks

1924 White Man

1924 White Man

1924 Wine

1925 Cupid's Victory

1925 The Half Way Girl

1926 Mannequin

1926 The Scarlet Letter

1926 The Son of the Sheik

1927 The Gaucho

1927 Wings

1928 A Woman of Affairs

1928 Laugh, Clown, Laugh

1928 Moran of the Marines

1928 The Last Command

1928 The Wedding March

1928 Three Weekends

1929 Dangerous Curves

1929 His First Command

1929 The Wild Party

1929 Weary River

Charles Green Shaw

Charles Green Shaw c1945 
© Smithsonian Archives of American Art

Charles Green Shaw (1892 - 1974) was a significant figure in American abstract art. Shaw enjoyed a varied career as a writer an illustrator, poet, modernist painter, and collector. Born to a wealthy family and orphaned at a young age, Charles and his twin brother were raised by their uncle, Frank D. Shaw. At age nine, he was already an avid painter and had illustrated his first book, "The Costumes of Nations." He also wrote and illustrated the children's book, "It Looked Like Spilt Milk," published in 1947.

Shaw graduated from Yale in 1914. He completed a year of architectural studies at Columbia University. He worked as a freelance writer for The New Yorker, The Smart Set, and Vanity Fair, where his focus was the 1920s theatre and café society. In 1927, Shaw enrolled in Thomas Hart Benton’s class at the Art Students League of New York. He also studied privately with George Luks. Shaw’s work is part of most major collections of American Art, including the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Guggenheim, the Smithsonian Institution, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Corcoran Gallery. 

Photograph of the Wrigley Building with a pack of Wrigley's gum by an unidentified photographer. Identification on the verso (handwritten): Charles G. Shaw idea for montage. The resulting 1937 painting is seen as a precursor of the Pop Art movement of the 1960s: 

1937 Wrigley's 
oil on canvas 76.2 x 114.3 cm

Note: I do not have the sizes or medium for all of the following works. I have added where known.

1930s The McCord Sisters' Duet 
oil on canvasboard 50.8 x 61 cm

1932c Self Portrait

1935c Self-Portrait

1936 Day and Night Polygon 
painted wood relief 31.2 x 24.4 cm

1936 Polygon Composition  
oil on board 40.6 x 33 cm

1936 Untitled ( Intersecting Trapezoids ) 
oil & sand on canvasboard 45.7 x 38.1 cm

1937 Plastic Polygon

1937 Soft Guitar 
oil on canvasboard 45.7 x 35.6 cm

1937 Untitled

1937c Abstract Construction 
painting on wood

1938 Night Flight

1938 Plastic Polygon

1940 Abstract 
oil on board 40.1 x 30.5 cm

1940 Untitled ( MR26 ) 
oil on canvasboard 40.6 x 30.2 cm

1940c Abstract Sketch 
mixed media 19 x 31 cm

1940c Gouache sketch for World's Fair 
motorized piece 33 x 20 cm

1940c Homage to Klee

1940c Untitled ( no.22 )

 

1940s Buy War Bonds Poster 
collage

1940s Buy War Bonds Poster 
collage

1941 Flying Figure

1941 Geometric Abstractions 
oil on canvasboard 40.6 x 30.5 cm

1941 Marine Series, Sunrise Bermuda 
oil on canvasboard 30.5 x 22.9 cm

1942 Irregular Construction 
oil on canvasboard 76.2 x 50.8 cm

1942 Rooftops and Pennants

1945 Untitled ( Atomic Flight )  
oil on canvasboard 55.9 x 76.2 cm

1949 New England Church 
oil on canvasboard 55.9 x 71.1 cm

1966c Interior no.2 
oil on canvas 88.9 x 76.2 cm

1968 Flight in Space

1969 Black on White Against Yellow  
oil on canvas 127 x 101.6 cm

1969 Sentinel 
oil on canvas 50 x 40 in

1970 Black into Yellow 
oil on canvas 127 x 101.6 cm

Note: I do not have dates for the remainder of these works. Consequently they will not be in sequence:

Abstract Composition 
oil on board 27.9 x 22.2 cm

Anatomy in Space 
oil on canvas 55.9 x 45.7 cm

Composition in Construction 
oil on canvasboard 45.7 x 35.6 cm

Cosmic Composition 
oil on canvasboard 76.2 x 55.9 cm

Day Break Construction 
painted wood relief 101.6 x 76.2 cm

Fandango 
oil on canvasboard 32.4 x 22.9 cm

Fed Me Poison For All Those Years

In the Open 
oil on canvas 97.2 x 67.3 cm

Light Progressions 
gouache on paper 38.7 x 51.4 cm

Multiply

Musical Composition 
oil on canvas 53.3 x 46.4 cm

Nautical Position 
oil on canvasboard 76.2 x 55.9 cm

Navigation 
oil on canvas 46.4 x 38.1 cm

Open Secret 
oil on wood box 23.5 x 15.2 cm

Orbit 
oil on canvasboard 40.6 x 30.5 cm

Perforated 
oil on canvasboard 76.2 x 55.9 cm

Plastic Polygon, Abstract Forms II

Signal 
gouache on board 30.5 x 21.6 cm

Space Station 
oil on canvasboard 40.6 x 30.5 cm