Vintage Poster Archives
Cappiello La Fleur des Pois 1932 | Theatre Michodiere
Cappiello La Fleur des Pois 1932 | Theatre Michodiere
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Three figures in formal evening dress are placed on a cream ground: a blonde woman in a low-back golden-yellow gown leans toward a dark-haired man in white-tie who gestures with an open hand, while a second man in black tailcoat turns away at left. Leonetto Cappiello renders the social comedy in a minimum of marks, the black of the tailcoats laid in with broad, confident strokes against the surrounding pale space.
The poster was made for the premiere of Edouard Bourdet's four-act comedy La Fleur des Pois at the Theatre de la Michodiere, which opened on 4 October 1932. Bourdet was one of the boulevard theatre's principal playwrights through the late 1920s and 1930s, and Cappiello had been the theatre's preferred poster designer across several productions in this period. The Devambez imprint appears in the left margin: Devambez, 164 Champs-Elysees, Paris. Cappiello signed and dated the composition lower left: Cappiello 32.
Cappiello (Livorno 1875, Cannes 1942) settled in Paris in 1898 and over four decades produced some of the most widely recognised poster work in French commercial art. By 1932, in his late period with the Devambez printing house, his line had shed the dense colour fields of his earlier advertising work and arrived at a spare illustrative register: line, wash, a single colour accent, and space. This poster is a good example of that economy. The three figures carry all the social friction of boulevard comedy without a single superfluous element.
Reproduced as a vintage theatre poster archival print on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper. A natural choice for those drawn to French Art Deco illustration, the graphic work of Cappiello, or the history of Parisian boulevard theatre.
