Nicolas, La Belle Au Bois Dormant - Iribe

Date: 1930s
Size:  9.5 x 12.5, framed
Notes: Poster, Lithograph
Artist: Iribe, Paul 
Information: For more details, please call 514 656 3301

To me, Paul Iribe's prints for the wine importer Nicolas, done at the height of the Art Deco period, as some of the finest, purest and most perfect Art Deco prints ever produced. With just two colors - black and white - Iribe managed to be fashionable, ironic, and cheeky - showing women at their most indulgent, men at their least secure, and Nicolas (a mascot with bug eyes who always seems to be in the right place at the right time) at his goofiest. I think these prints - which I first saw many years ago - are one of the reasons I became a poster dealer. I love them! Issued in a small run of 500 in the early 1930's, they are becoming increasing rare and hard to find. Like most posters, each of these has a twist - in this one: La Belle Au Bois Dormant translates literally as "Sleeping Beauty in the Wood(s)", referring no doubt, to the fact that a wine bottle is (or was) packed in a wooden box 

Born Paul Iribarnegaray in Angouleme, France in 1883, Iribe received his education in Paris. From 1908 to 1910 he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and the College Rollin, where his friends included the then-unknown illustrators George Barbier,Georges Lepape, George Martin, and Pierre Brissaud. In his early twenties he became an apprentice printer at Le Tempsnewspaper, and from 1900, he submitted dozens of illustrations and caricatures to such French satirical papers as Rire,Sourire, and L'Assiette au beurre.

Print size is 9.5 x 12.5 inches, framed size is 15 x 18 inches.