PAUL COLIN

ANDRE RENAUD. 1929.
62x46 1/4 inches. H. Chachoin, Paris.
Condition A-: minor creases and abrasions in margins. Framed.
Paul Colin was one of the most important graphic designers of theater and music hall posters during the French Art Deco period. In just one night, in 1925, his poster for the Revue Nègre made Josephine Baker, jazz and himself the craze of all Paris. Colin went on to design hundreds of posters, stage sets, costumes and cabaret decorations, easily keeping up with the furious pace of the roaring 20s! He was very fond of the piano as a decorative element and it appeared in stylized forms in some of his earliest posters. His first, and by far best piano poster was for Wiener et Doucet in 1925, a perfectly soft, geometrically balanced poster. In 1927 he took the piano to further cubist abstraction in an exquisite poster for Lisa Duncan. In 1929 he used this comfortable cubist approach again for André Renaud; a virtuoso who could play two pianos at the same time. Slightly more realistic and rigid than the two earlier posters, Colin still maintains a good and appealing stylized form. Colin p. 73 no. 74.