French artist Jules Chéret (1836 – 1932) orchestrated color with a maestro’s touch. Inspired by the works of Rubens and other acclaimed artists, Chéret created posters that featured an inferno of incomparably dazzling colors. He revolutionized printing and advertising with the invention of color lithography, in which each hue was separately and spectacularly inked and printed. Chéret’s enormous, innovative and fantastic posters were produced for a vast myriad of outlets, including cabarets, theaters, novels, beverages and cosmetics. Chéret’s work, which struck an incomparable balance between the fantasy and reality of colors, elevated lithography to an art form, and earned him worldwide acclaim as “The Master of the Poster.”

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