Vintage Poster Archives
Cinzano Toujours Favori 1950 | Jean Carlu Vintage Poster
Cinzano Toujours Favori 1950 | Jean Carlu Vintage Poster
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A blue-skinned centaur with an orange-and-black striped equine lower body prances across a navy-to-teal ground, raising a stemmed glass of amber Cinzano vermouth. Bold white headline CINZANO sits at the top of the field; the gold strapline '...Toujours Favori', Always the Favourite, runs beneath it. The composition is spare and self-assured: one mythological figure, one bottle, one gesture, and the entire character of the brand made legible at distance.
Jean Carlu (1900–1997) designed this poster in 1950, printed in Paris by De Plas and dated 31 January 1950 in the lower margin. Carlu was one of the foremost French graphic designers of the twentieth century, serving as International President of the Alliance Graphique Internationale from 1945 to 1956. The centaur figure deliberately extends Cappiello's celebrated Cinzano red-zebra mascot, first established in the 1910s, transposing a brand lineage that ran from Cappiello through Carlu and into the early 1950s advertising landscape. The poster is catalogued as Carlu 76 and has appeared at Christie's, Swann, and Poster Auctions International.
Carlu returned to France from the United States in 1953, this Cinzano poster dates from the final years of his American period and sits alongside his Air France and Pan American work of the same era. The gradated background, from deep navy at the crown to teal at the base, reflects the clean colour-field approach Carlu brought from his modernist training. The orange of the animal's stripes and the saturated cobalt of the centaur's skin generate a contrast that holds the eye without resorting to decorative excess.
Reproduced as a Giclée archival print on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper, with pigment-based inks on a natural-white matte surface free of optical brighteners. The design is from 1950; the print is freshly produced by Vintage Poster Archives.
