Winnetka residents David and Marilyn Wittenberg fell in love with Paris and its posters-in that order.
Their love affair with Paris began when they honeymooned there in 1969. They took a few vacations there over the next few years, but the trips always left them wanting more.
Then, in 1975, a Parisian cousin who had an art gallery introduced the Wittenbergs to vintage French advertising posters, which were just starting to be collected in Europe and the United States. The big, colorful works were the main form of advertising for plays, products, places and politics in Europe from the late 1800s to the 1930s.
David, a tax lawyer, had an inspiration.
“It hit me that we could afford to go to Paris a lot more if we became poster dealers, and could write the trips off as business. So we really got attracted to posters because of a tax write-off.”
Good business sense quickly gave way to a genuine poster passion. The couple became collectors, as well as dealers. They studied poster history, researched artists and attended as many auctions as they could to learn and, whenever possible, buy. They traveled all over France and other countries in Europe, looking for long-lost posters in out-of-the way shops and flea markets.
“They don’t make posters like these anymore, and those that still exist are limited in number. So the more they’ve been collected, the rarer they’ve become, and some have appreciated dramatically over the years,” David explained.
(Martin Gordon, publisher of Gordon’s Print Price Annual, told Investment Vision Magazine: “Right through the 1970s, one dealer had 100 copies of Toulouse-Lautrec’s Divan Japonais, which he sold for $800 each. These posters now sell for $20,000 to $25,000 and more.”)
Posted on walls along European streets, on railroad cars and other public places, the posters were designed to grab the attention of passersby with fabulous art and innovative design. Some were done by well-known artists, including Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Pablo Picasso. People who couldn’t afford “real art” often saved discarded posters for their novelty and decorating value. Many printers kept extras on their back shelves or gave them to friends.
In 1982, when poster collecting was “hot,” the Wittenbergs moved to France for a year to scour the countryside for rare posters.
“We didn’t find a lot,” David said. “It was kind of naive of us. By that time, most people realized that the old posters that had been gathering dust in their attics were really worth something, and most had been sold to local dealers. But we did make some good finds.”
Once they responded to a newspaper ad indicating that a private party in Brussels had a lot of old posters for sale. They traveled there and found the apartment in a seedy neighborhood.
“There were three young people there, obviously stoned out of their minds,” David recalled. “They made us have a picnic with them on the floor before they finally brought out all these rolled up posters. Most were ghastly, but there were a few by an artist named Henri Cassiers that we knew we wanted right away.
“Those posters are exceedingly hard to find now, and they’ve quadrupled in value since we bought them.”
Every wall of the couple’s old and stately Winnetka home greets visitors with the bold colors and designs of fine turn-of-the-century posters predominantly from France and Switzerland.
Among the highlights are two lithographs by Lautrec from the 1890s, one a very large one of a French courtesan, promoting a magazine. The other is much smaller, done for a salon show, in which Lautrec memorialized a woman he loved from afar.
They also have art nouveau posters by other coveted artists of the period, including Alphonse Mucha and Jules Cheret. And there are works from the art deco period of the 1920s and ’30s, including ones by Picasso and A.M. Cassandre, who is regarded by many collectors as the best poster designer of all time. A favorite is the Cassandre in David’s home office, “Etoile du Noir,” a famous and hard-to-find train poster that depicts train tracks reaching toward the North Star.
The couple also have about 200 turn-of-the century European posters for sale on all subjects and in all styles. They will be exhibiting many of these at the International Vintage Poster Fair in Chicago next weekend.
Most of the Wittenbergs’ posters are stone lithographs, the most coveted of vintage posters. Stone lithography was used in printing most posters through the 1930s. The artist oiled a large table-size stone, then drew the design onto it with a grease pencil. Paper was then pressed down on the stone to create the image, and colors were often done in separate stages.
Offset printing replaced stone lithography in the 1930s, allowing for greater speed-and making later posters less valuable to collectors.
“The stone lithographs offer people a way to acquire an original work of art by a well-known artist for a lot less than a painting by that artist. For example, a Picasso lithograph might sell for $20,000, while an original painting would sell for 10 times that,” David said.
He added, however, that most lithographs available by lesser-known artists range in price from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, depending on subject matter, condition and rarity.
“The hardest thing designwise is that a lot of people want horizontal pieces for over a couch or pastel colors,” Marilyn said. “You can find them, but it’s hard because most posters were made to hang vertically, and most were done in bright colors to attract attention.”
“In our home, we never worry too much about the colors. We just buy posters we love and it all seems to flow together.”
Many people also buy and collect posters on subjects related to hobbiies or special interests, from golf to medicine, or circuses to wars.
“Posters run the gamut from A to Z in terms of subject matter, colors and style,” David said. “Some of it’s pretty, some of it’s not-but a lot is very good art.”
