Benzo-Moteur - pour Automobiles

With «Benzo-Moteur,» Jules Chéret (1836 – 1932) returned to top form once again after his absolute heyday around 1890, delivering an outstanding piece of work. One reason was likely that Chéret found himself confronted with a product for which there was hardly any market before the turn of the century and for which virtually no one—and certainly no master of Chéret's stature—had yet advertised: gasoline.

It may come as a surprise that in his work the ladies drive, while the gentleman in the background folds his hands in his lap. After all, driving the first automobiles—despite Bertha Benz—was a man's job. However, Chéret was always concerned with the most attractive and, in the best sense, eye-catching depiction possible. Women at the wheel achieved the desired effect,

The trained printer and lithographer Jules Chéret is the undisputed father of the modern poster. It was he who gave vibrant colors to the monotonous advertising posters that emerged in the course of industrialization by means of his process, developed after years of tinkering—and still at economical costs. In addition, he was one of the very first to integrate lettering into the picture, thus using it as part of the motif, and relied on a two-dimensional rather than detailed representation. In doing so, he banished dreariness from the posters and ushered in the age of the «gallery of the street».

You might also be interested in:
Supershell – Super Fuel