{"product_id":"villemot-crosse-blackwell-sauce-tomate-1981","title":"Villemot Crosse \u0026 Blackwell 1981 | Vintage Advertising Poster","description":"\u003cp\u003eA woman faces downward, eyes half-lowered beneath broad black lash strokes, red lips pursed in quiet satisfaction. Her hair, or what serves as hair, is a single ripe tomato, a flat disc of cadmium red topped with a green calyx, set against a solid black ground. The Crosse \u0026amp; Blackwell label floats above her as a kind of thought-bubble, 'sauce tomate' inscribed beneath it in red brush script. In her outstretched hand, a yellow dish of pasta, with a miniature sauce tin nestled on top. Everything in the composition is two-dimensional, without shadow or modelling, each element reduced to its cleanest possible shape.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBernard Villemot (1911–1989) designed this poster for the French market in 1981 as part of what Crosse \u0026amp; Blackwell internally called 'The Feminine Tomato' campaign. Villemot had studied under Paul Colin and spent four decades building a practice grounded in the belief that a poster should be treated as a painting: a single arresting image, complete in itself, requiring no explanatory text. By 1981 that philosophy had produced the world-recognised Orangina bottle-woman, the Bally shoe women, and the Perrier series. The Crosse \u0026amp; Blackwell commission belongs to the same late-career vein, where his flat graphic language and saturated palette were fully resolved. The campaign was credited with a 17 per cent increase in Crosse \u0026amp; Blackwell sales over the preceding year in the French market.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eReproduced from the 1981 design on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper, pigment-based archival inks, smooth matte finish, natural white tone. The deep black ground and the high-contrast red-and-white palette hold particularly well on matte stock.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSits well with collectors of mid-century French commercial graphic design and alongside advertising prints from Cappiello, Savignac and Carlu.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vintage Poster Archives","offers":[{"title":"A4","offer_id":64053785493881,"sku":"VPA-13511-A4","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"A3","offer_id":64053785526649,"sku":"VPA-13511-A3","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"A2","offer_id":64053785559417,"sku":"VPA-13511-A2","price":34.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"50x70cm","offer_id":64053785592185,"sku":"VPA-13511-50x70cm","price":39.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"A1","offer_id":64053785624953,"sku":"VPA-13511-A1","price":44.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"70x100cm","offer_id":64053785657721,"sku":"VPA-13511-70x100cm","price":59.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"A0","offer_id":64053785690489,"sku":"VPA-13511-A0","price":69.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0994\/1139\/4937\/files\/Food-CrosseBlackwell-Villemot-SauceTomate-1960s.jpg?v=1785004527","url":"https:\/\/vintageposterarchives.com\/products\/villemot-crosse-blackwell-sauce-tomate-1981","provider":"Vintage Poster Archives","version":"1.0","type":"link"}