Vintage Poster Archives
Hurtu Autos et Cycles 1903 | Lorant-Heilbronn Poster
Hurtu Autos et Cycles 1903 | Lorant-Heilbronn Poster
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A woman in a white riding habit and black feathered boa pauses beside her Hurtu safety bicycle on the Avenue de la Grande Armee, the arc of yellow wheels echoing the amber Paris sky behind her. To her left, an early Hurtu motor car in red coachwork carries two passengers through the promenade; further back, horse-drawn carriages and cyclists fill the boulevard, and the Arc de Triomphe anchors the right horizon. Decorative Art Nouveau rose vines climb the right border, framing the whole in the Belle Epoque graphic style at its most urbane.
Designed by Vincent Lorant-Heilbronn (1874–1912) for the Compagnie des Autos et Cycles Hurtu, circa 1903. Lorant-Heilbronn exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français from 1895 and worked across poster commissions, theatre decoration and early cinema simultaneously, making him one of the most versatile commercial artists of the Paris turn-of-the-century scene. The poster was commissioned to advertise both Hurtu's cycling and automobile lines from the company's showroom at 29, Avenue de la Grande Armee, with a local dealer imprint for J.-B. Gatinet Cycles.
Hurtu had been producing bicycles since the 1880s under the original Hurtu, Hautin et Diligeon partnership, and the 1899 reconstitution as Compagnie des Autos et Cycles Hurtu placed it at the intersection of the two new technologies transforming Parisian mobility. This composition depicts that precise tension: the woman cyclist holds centre stage while the automobile is already in the scene behind her, still secondary, still one vehicle among many. Within a decade, the hierarchy would reverse.
Naturally suited to anyone drawn to French Belle Epoque commercial lithography, cycling history, or the visual culture of Paris at the turn of the twentieth century. Reproduced from an archival source on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper.
