Vintage Poster Archives
Bicyclettes Dainty 1923 | Paul Mohr Cycling Poster
Bicyclettes Dainty 1923 | Paul Mohr Cycling Poster
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A female harlequin in a close-fitted green costume rides a flat-graphic yellow bicycle with her arms flung wide, a broad red sash sweeping behind her across a near-solid black background. At lower right, a rustic wooden fence anchors the scene; below, 'DAINTY' is set in outsized yellow display lettering, with 'ST. ÉTIENNE (LOIRE)' in green. Three saturated colours against black: the compositional shorthand that made French Art Deco advertising posters immediately readable from a distance.
Designed by Paul Gustave Mohr (1890–1959) in March 1923 and printed by EDIA at 44 rue Letellier, Paris, both facts legible in the left-margin text. Mohr produced two cycling posters that year, the companion being Cycles Wonder; he went on to work for Dubonnet, Champigneulles, and Banania through the 1920s and 1930s. His single-figure-against-void approach placed him squarely in the tradition that Leonetto Cappiello had established in Paris in the preceding decade, and which Mohr adapted with particular assurance for the French bicycle boom.
Saint-Étienne (Loire) was the heartland of the French bicycle industry in the early twentieth century. The Dainty brand was one of its products.
Reproduced from archival source material as an archival print on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper, available in multiple sizes.
