ART & ARTISTS: Bicycle Posters

Friday 25 June 2021

Bicycle Posters - part 7

Bicycles were introduced in the 19th century in Europe, and by the early 21st century, more than 1 billion were in existence at a given time. These numbers far exceed the number of cars, both in total and ranked by the number of individual models produced. They are the principal means of transportation in many regions.

The safety bicycle was developed in 1894, and this allowed women the momentous occasion to finally cycle on their own. Advertisers were quick to realise that if women began riding bicycles, then their marketing tactics would have to adapt to increase sales. This proved to be a key moment of transformation: female consumers needed to see themselves in advertising, and the poster art obliged them. For the first time ever, women were given a key element to attaining independence—the bicycle, and all the roving possibilities that entailed—and posters emboldened this new assertion of power. Female cyclists were depicted as goddesses, warriors, angels, enchantresses, and arbiters of their own desires. In posters, the women were in charge.

Posters continued their work of appealing to both female and male consumers. Their depictions of powerful goddesses could inspire female audiences, but they could also be made attractive to men. In this way, advertisers could sell the idea of machines to women and also sell the idea of women using machines to male audiences—a double marketing whammy.

For more information on bicycle posters see part 1, and for earlier examples see parts 1 - 6 also.

This is part 7 of an 11-part series on bicycle posters:

c1910 Acatene Metropole by Achille Butteri (France)
55 x 44 cm

Cycles Continental by Achille Butteri (France)

Cycles Liberator by Achille Butteri (France)
139.5 x 106.5 cm

Cycles Perfecta by Achille Butteri (France)

Le Roi de la Souplesse by Achille Butteri (France)

c1910 Alcyon by Louis Brau (France)
120 x 80 cm

c1910 Cycles Barré (France)
81 x 119 cm

c1910 Cycles Céler by Louis Brau (France)

c1910 Cycles Clement by René Leverd (France)
76.2 x 53.3 cm

René Leverd (born in Hesdin 1872 - 1938 in Paris), known for landscape and cityscape painting, decoration, and illustration. Primarily a watercolorist, painting landscapes, he also traveled extensively, so the landscapes around Hesdin in the Pas-de-Calais, are largely supplemented with landscapes ranging from the canals of Bruges to those of calcined Boghari through all French provinces, the Ile de France, Normandy, Brittany, Paris of course, particularly Provence Saint-Tropez, which was his favorite place, Italy and North Africa, especially his works of Algier and Tunis.

c1910 Cycles Lea et Norma (Belgium)

c1910 Cycles Soleil (France)

1910c Diamant (Germany)

c1910 Meteor cycles (France)

c1910 Noricum-Kettenlos (Chainless) (Austria)

c1910 Opel (Germany)

c1910 Regent (Austria)

c 1910s Cycles Confiance (France)

c 1910s Cycles Motocycles Cot Dijon (France)

c1910 - 1911 Posters by Leonetto Cappiello:

eonetto Cappiello (1875 – 1942) was an Italian/French poster artist and painter, who mainly lived and worked in Paris. He is now often called 'the father of modern advertising' because of his innovation in poster design. The early advertising poster was characterised by a painterly quality as evidenced by early poster artists Jules Chéret, Alfred Choubrac and Hugo D'Alesi. Cappiello, like other young artists, worked in way that was almost the opposite of his predecessors. He was the first poster artist to use bold figures popping out of black backgrounds, a startling contrast to the posters early norm.

Note: A series on the works of Leonetto Cappiello can be found in this blog index.

c1910 Pneu Velo Baudou "La Sirene" by Leonetto Cappiello (France)

1911 Pneu Vélo Lefort by Leonetto Cappiello(France)
160 x 120 cm

c1910 - 1922 Posters by Plinio Codognato (Italy)

After early training as a painter, Codognato dedicated himself to advertising illustration. In 1904 he gained recognition with his design for the Verona Horse Fair and for the next thirty-five years he designed one hundred and fifty posters. His style ranged from humorous images, comparable to works by Cappiello and Mauzan, to near-Futurist images of speeding cars and majestic automobiles. He was also closely associated with Fiat, for whom he designed a number of impressive images.

c1910 Cicli Fiat by Plinio Codognato (Italy)

1915 Cycles Labor by Plinio Cognato (Italy)

1922 Atala by Plinio Codognato (Italy)

1911 - 1918 Posters by Jean-Marie Michel Libeaux:

Jean-Marie Michel Libeaux (1881 -1923) was a French caricaturist and poster designer. He studied painting in Nantes. He became a poster artist and cartoonist under the name of Mich , serving many brands, mainly related to the world of the cycle and the automobile. He also contributed to the periodicals L'Echo de Paris , Fantasio and La Vie Parisienne.

1911 Alcyon by Jean-Marie Michel Libeaux (France)
159 x 120.4 cm

c1912 La Française by Jean-Marie Michel Liebeaux (France)
158 x 117.5 cm

1918 Bicyclette Gurtner byJean-Marie Michel Libeaux (France)

biciclette Bianchi le migliori by Jean-Marie Michel Libeaux (Italy)

Bicyclette Gurtner by Michel Libeaux (France)

Cycles Wonder by Michel Libeaux (France)

Hutchinson Pneus by Jean-Marie Michel Libeaux (France)

1950 Hutchinson Super Reinforced
Copy after Jean-Marie Michel Libeaux (France)

La Bicyclette J. B. Louver by Michel Libeaux (France)

Pneu Vélo Hutchinson by Jean-Marie Michel Libeaux (France)

Pneu-Vélo Continental by Michel Libeaux (France)

Vélo Petit Breton by Jean-Marie Michel Libeaux (France)

1911 La Française Diamant (France)

c1911 Cycles Rudge by Jacques Debut (France)

1912 - 1934 Posters by Osvaldo Ballerio:

Osvaldo Ballerio (Milan 1870 - Azzate [Varese] 1942) was one of the most important poster artists of the early 1900s. He had graduated from the Brera Academy in Milan and is well known also for his humourous cartoons, patriotic postcards during the Cold War, and the interiors of some churches in the Val d’Intelvi, in Lombardy.