Tell me why: Some attributes regarding posters

Once upon a time, posters - it's hard to believe today - were able to charm even the most hurried viewer. Whether they advertised products or vacation resorts, events or ideas: Eye-catcher followed eye-catcher, art and commerce were one, on the pulse of the times - whereby the pursuit of a bold, attention-grabbing synthesis of image and text repeatedly drove the creators of posters to fresh, powerful solutions.

Initially mostly designed by fine artists, then by representatives of the developing guild of commercial artists and typographers, masters of their trade printed the posters as lithographs in rich colors and sweaty manual work from limestones weighing almost tons. The rise of photography and the triumph of cheaper offset printing, which - in the case of Switzerland - took off after the Second World War, marked the beginning of the end of lithographed posters.

The proximity to people's everyday lives, combined with the extensive artistic freedom of the designers at the time and the bold colors of lithography, explains the appeal of the posters created up to around 1960, which hardly anyone can escape. They are witnesses to times long past that were perhaps no better, but in which art and commerce harmonized in a magnificent way that has never been seen since.

It is often pure coincidence that individual sheets of the few hundred copies printed back then have survived to this day, even if there were enthusiasts and public institutions early on who recognized the aesthetic and (art) historical value of posters and collected them. After all, they were unwieldy, fragile everyday objects, printed on cheap paper, intended for display and thus doomed to destruction within a few weeks. Accordingly, surviving copies by renowned authors such as Emil Cardinaux, Otto Baumberger or Martin Peikert, which were also used to promote fashionable winter resorts or traditional brands and which were able to convey the message in an attractive way, are highly sought-after works.

If such posters are still in comparatively good condition despite their originally ephemeral character, despite their size and despite their vulnerability, coveted works become highly sought-after trophies and collector's items - which in turn can be reflected in five-figure prices. However, these are also the works that belong to the canon, so to speak, and for which the investment can still be worthwhile despite the previous increase in value.

The ABC of describing the condition

When assessing the condition of a poster, the criteria are nowhere near as strict as those applied to hand-signed prints, for example. Nevertheless, the condition naturally plays a central role in the evaluation of a poster.