Vintage Poster Archives
Six Jours de Paris 1957 | Charieras Cycling Poster
Six Jours de Paris 1957 | Charieras Cycling Poster
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Three track cyclists sprint through a cobalt-rimmed oval on a black ground, orange jerseys blurring into diagonal streaks of yellow and pink. The lead rider occupies the lower arc of the oval; two more recede behind him in close formation. Outside the spotlight, a large orange '6' anchors the right half of the composition, with 'Jours / VEL'D'HIV' stacked in white and black beneath it. A yellow footer band carries 'SUZE / A LA GENTIANE' in bold black type. Date text, '7 au 13 / NOVEMBRE', sits top-left in contrasting white and orange.
Designed by Yves Charieras and printed by Imprimerie du Val d'Osne, Paris, this is the official race poster for the 1957 Six Jours de Paris at the Vélodrome d'Hiver. The Vel' d'Hiv' was Paris's enclosed indoor velodrome on the boulevard de Grenelle, and the Six Jours was its signature November event: six consecutive nights of team track racing, drawing capacity crowds and some of the era's best riders. The 1957 edition was won by Jacques Anquetil, André Darrigade, and Ferdinando Terruzzi. The building was demolished in 1959, making any poster from the Vel' d'Hiv' Six Jours series a document of a venue that no longer exists. Suze, the gentian-root aperitif established at the 1889 Paris World's Fair, was the title sponsor; its advertising budget was well known for backing major French sporting events throughout the 1950s.
Charieras's composition uses the oval form simultaneously as a velodrome banking, a theatrical spotlight, and a graphic container, a concise solution that locates the event without depicting the actual venue. The gestural speed-lines are drawn from Futurist-influenced commercial illustration, adapted here into a flat-colour lithographic palette of orange, cobalt, yellow, and black.
Reproduced from an archival source as a fine art print on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper. A natural choice for cycling enthusiasts, mid-century graphic design collectors, and anyone drawn to French sporting culture of the postwar decade.
