# Picture Posters/Chapter 9

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* CHAPTER IX.
THE PICTORIAL POSTER IN AMERICA.
In the sweet uses of advertisement the American is surely an expert, and it would have been curious indeed, if he had overlooked so obvious and so effective a method of advertising as the pictorial poster. Finding, in the notorious phrase of Mr. Whistler, that "Art was on the town," the American advertiser was one of the most eager of those passing gallants who chucked her under the chin. Who it was originated the artistic poster movement in the States, it were hard to say with certainty: it may have been Mr. Matt. Morgan. Among recent American poster producers, three, however, are most conspicuous, Mr. Edward Penfield, Mr. Louis J. Rhead, and Mr. Will. H. Bradley. It is probable that the first-named was the innovator: at least, one would be tempted to judge so from the quantity of his designs.
Mr. Penfield is still young, having been born at Brooklyn in the year 1866, so that if he was the first American artist to deal with the poster, the movement in that ​continent is obviously a recent one. Most of his posters are on a small scale, and partake of the nature of window-bills rather than of placards especially destined to the hoarding. At the same time, Mr. Penfield has been by no means slow to appreciate that it is the first
DESIGN BY EDWARD PENFIELD.
business of an advertisement to advertise, and his appreciation of this fact, coupled with a very dainty fancy and no small technical skill, has led to results which are of unquestionable importance. With his earliest efforts I cannot pretend to be well acquainted. In 1893 he produced for a ​firm at Salem a large bill which measures eighty-one by forty-two inches. The subject is a girl in a black dress and yellow jacket who is laden with packages. For
DESIGN BY EDWARD PENFIELD.
the publications of the firm of Harpers, Mr. Penfield has done quite a quantity of excellent and artistic advertisements. Amongst the most effective is one produced for a special midsummer number of ​"Harper's Bazar," representing a girl playing a banjo, divided by a crimson sun from an attentive listener of the opposite sex. Again, for the issue of July, 1894, the artist gives us a girl in white lighting red crackers arranged to spell the name of the month. For the February number of the following year, we are presented, most appropriately, with a gentleman posting a valentine in an orange coloured letter-box. In April of the same year, Mr. Penfield gives us Joan of Arc in yellow, wielding sword and staff. Amongst the numerous books which Mr. Penfield has advertised may be mentioned "The Cloister and the Hearth," "Pastime Stories," "Our English Cousins," and "Perlycross." This artist's work is always ingeniously conceived, and the colour schemes are not seldom pleasantly audacious. Mr. Penfield gives us very agreeable versions of the American girl in general, and of the "summer girl" in particular. His maidens are adorably conscious of their power to charm, and are fully alive to the fact that their gowns are of the smartest.
DESIGN BY EDWARD PENFIELD.
DESIGN BY LOUIS J. RHEAD (FOR THE NEW YORK "SUN").
​Kensington for several years, and only reached America in 1883. He has exhibited at the
DESIGN BY LOUIS J. RHEAD.
Salon and the Academy and other important picture shows.
DESIGN BY LOUIS J. RHEAD.
​Mr. Louis Rhead has held an exhibition of his posters, the catalogue of which, by reason of its very characteristic and personal
DESIGN BY LOUIS J. RHEAD.
decorations, is highly esteemed by collectors of those unconsidered trifles which end in becoming especially dear to the connoisseur.
​Among the magazines of the world, the "Chap Book," which emanates from Chicago, is by no means the least interesting. Fascinating as is the title, the contents of this little periodical are still more so; its editors seem to have eschewed banality, and to have gone in for novelty, even when the new did not possess an extraordinary degree of merit. It were meet that so original a publication should have an advertiser of corresponding eccentricity. In Mr. Will. H. Bradley, the proprietors of the "Chap Book" undoubtedly possess such an one. Born at Springfield, Massachusetts, Mr. Bradley lives in Chicago, and to that town and its publications he has mainly devoted his energies as an artist advertiser. It will hardly be disputed that he has seen and assimilated, in no small degree, the manner of Mr. Aubrey Beardsley. He is, however, a great deal more than a mere imitator; what he has borrowed, he has borrowed with conspicuous intelligence, and nobody could for a moment accuse him of anything approaching petty larceny. Among his most important posters is a colossal one which, in the manner of Mr. Beardsley, proclaims the attractions of the drama by Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, entitled "The Masqueraders." In 1894 Mr. Bradley advertised the "Chap Book" by means of two dancers in red and brown costumes; the following year he insisted on the same ​publication by means of a girl in white and a man in black; and yet again, through the medium of a young lady in blue, mixed up with trees in intense purple, outlined with red and white; and several other equally effective compositions.
DESIGN BY WILL H. BRADLEY.
DESIGN BY WILL H. BRADLEY.
DESIGN BY WILL H. BRADLEY.
A FRAGMENT OF A DESIGN BY WILL H. BRADLEY.
DESIGN BY WILL H. BRADLEY.
A FRAGMENT OF A POSTER FOR "THE MASQUERADERS," BY WILL H. BRADLEY.
DESIGN BY WILL H. BRADLEY.
​"Songs from Vagabondia" is in black and white, and consists of portraits of the artist himself and the authors of the book, Mr. Bliss Carman and Mr. Richard Hovey. A limited number of copies were printed "sur Japon," and these, I believe, are rare. As in the case of so many other American artists, Mr. Francis Day's poster work was done for the most part for the great illustrated magazines which do such credit to the United States, as an art-producing nation. Mr. Day's design for "St. Nicholas," Christmas, 1894, seems to me altogether agreeable, while in the series designed for "Scribner's Magazine," more than one interesting thing will be found.
In dealing with the poster in England, we have noticed the fact that one woman, Mrs. Dearmer, has succeeded in producing a bill at once artistic and effective. Miss Ethel Reed would seem to be the most conspicuous lady-artist who has taken up the designing of artistic posters in the States. Her efforts date only from last February, when she did an advertisement for the "Boston Sunday Herald." Since then she has produced several designs which are held in considerable esteem by American collectors. Amongst other artists who have taken part in the poster movement on the other side of the Atlantic are the following: Messrs. Alder ("New York World," March 17th, 1895), Allen, Palmer Cox ​("New Brownie Book"), C. Miles Gardner ("Boston Sunday Herald," February 10th, 1895, and March 10th, 1895), Oliver Herford, Charles M. Howard ("Boston Sunday Herald," April 21st, 1895), Frank King ("New York World," April 7th, 1895), H. McCarter (the Green Tree Library), Moores ("St. Nicholas," November, 1894), Julius A. Schweinfurth (Boston Festival Orchestra, 1895), W. Granville Smith ("Scribner's Magazine," Christmas, 1894), W. L. Taylor, Abby E. Underwood, R. Wills Irving, C. H. Woodbury, Charles Hubbard Wright, and William M. Paxton. The last named has been chiefly associated with the "Boston Sunday Herald," and for that journal he has produced several posters of distinction.
​present year the subject has been dealt with by writers in such important newspapers as
DESIGN BY SCOTSON CLARK.
the "New York Tribune" and the "Boston Herald," to say nothing of such journals as ​"Scribner's Magazine," the "Critic," the "Art Interchange," and the "Art Amateur." Quite recently the English public have had opportunities of seeing the best work by French and native artists. It is to be hoped that at the next poster exhibition they will be afforded a chance of seeing what excellent work American designers are doing in this very practical branch of applied art.
A poster by Mr. E. A. Abbey, illustrated on page 315, arrived too late for consideration in its proper place. It is entirely worthy the great reputation of the artist who has so kindly permitted us to reproduce it here. The figure is in red scale armour, bearing a shield with a red cross.
DESIGN BY FRANCIS DAY.
DESIGN BY H. M$^C$CARTER.