Jean Carlu
Encyclopedia
Bonnières-sur-Seine
Bonnières-sur-Seine is a commune in the Yvelines department in north-central France.-References:*...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, 1900 - 1989) was a French graphic designer
Graphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...
, specialised in posters. He was member of a family of architects; his brother Jacques Carlu
Jacques Carlu
Jacques Carlu was a French architect and designer, working mostly in Art Deco style, active in France, Canada, and in the United States....
for example designed the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. He made posters during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
to promote an increase in American production.
Biography
Jean Carlu started his career as a professional poster-designer in 1919, after a competition by a producer of dental aids (Glycodont) in 1918. From 1919 until 1921 he served as an illustrator, after which he worked at an agency that designed advertisements. In that period he designed his first poster in art decoArt Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
style (for The Kid
The Kid (1921 film)
The Kid is a 1921 American silent dramedy film written by, produced by, directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, and features Jackie Coogan as his adopted son and sidekick. This was Chaplin's first full-length movie...
by Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
). He was attracted by cubism
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
and by the works of Juan Gris
Juan Gris
José Victoriano González-Pérez , better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter and sculptor who lived and worked in France most of his life...
and Albert Gleizes
Albert Gleizes
Albert Gleizes , was a French painter. Born Albert Léon Gleizes and raised in Paris, he was the son of a fabric designer who ran a large industrial design workshop...
. He was one of the first who realised that to fix a trademark in the minds of consumers a process needs to be gone through in which schematic forms and expressive colours are applied. These are the characteristics that give his posters and other works their distinguishable quality.
The fame of Carlu rests mainly on two posters: for Monsavon and for the Théâtre Pigalle
Théâtre Pigalle
The Théâtre Pigalle was a theatre in Paris, located in the rue Pigalle in the ninth arrondissement.- History :Opened on June 20, 1929, financed by Philippe de Rothschild on the estate of his father Henri de Rothschild, the Rothschilds' ambition was to construct the most modern theatre in the world...
. He also designed a pioneering label for the 1924 vintage of Château Mouton-Rothschild