Vintage Poster Archives
Omnium Cycles Paris c.1898 | Art Nouveau Bicycle Poster
Omnium Cycles Paris c.1898 | Art Nouveau Bicycle Poster
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A red-haired woman in a burnt-orange dress rides her bicycle through a French park, one arm extended forward, a long grey sash streaming behind her. A ghostly white-clad figure on a second bicycle recedes into the middle distance; an early open-top automobile follows the road at the horizon. Three forms of fin-de-siècle personal transport share a single green parkland, and the whole scene is set beneath the broad Art Nouveau lettering of 'Omnium Cycles & Automobiles, Paris.'
The Manufacture des Cycles Omnium was founded in 1890 at Charenton, just south-east of Paris, with retail premises at Rue Taylor, 3, in the city centre. The lithograph dates to around 1897-1898, at the height of the French vélocipède boom, when cycle manufacturers competed fiercely for the bourgeois leisure market and invested heavily in poster commissions. The composition is typical of the Belle Époque affiche: sinuous line-work, flowing auburn hair and drapery treated as pure organic form, a palette of burnt orange and cobalt blue that reads across a street.
Reproduced as a fine art archival print on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper, restored from an archival source. Smooth matte surface, natural-white OBA-free stock.
A considered choice for anyone interested in Art Nouveau commercial graphic design, the early history of French cycling culture, or the visual language of the 1890s Belle Époque.
