Vintage Poster Gallery

Advertising posters featuring rugs of all kinds, from the 1880’s to the 1950’s. Each of the original posters shown on our online gallery, are mounted on the walls of our showroom. When in Chicago, you are welcome to visit.

Prior to the late 1800’s print advertising was restricted to black and white text. In the 1870’s, with the invention of the stone lithographic printing technique by Jules Cheret –the “Maitre de L’Affiche (‘father’ or ‘master’ of the poster) the world of vintage advertising posters born. Finally capable of mass-producing advertisements in colour, companies of the day commissioned well-known artists such as Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, Alphonse Mucha, and Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen to develop their marketing ideas and create striking poster art.

The streets of Paris were filled with colour, displaying images of Menier-Nestle, Campari and the Moulin Rouge. The advertising phenomenon quickly spread beyond France to the rest of the western world – Italy began producing wonderful posters for the opera and fashion industry; Poland and Russia highlighted political messages; the US specialized in magazine publications and war propaganda; Spain altered the public to festivals and local bullfighting meets.

These beautiful images were only intended to last the short life of an advertising campaign. Generally, between 100 and 3000 posters were printed on inexpensive paper and placed throughout the city on billboards, subways and the sides of the buildings. In a matter of weeks these pieces were torn down or covered with the next advertisement. If not for the endeavors of early collectors, printing houses or the artist themselves, then vintage posters, would certainly be a thing in the past.

It is these original pieces of beauty and artistic merit that PIR International brings to you today.