Jules Chéret

(French, 1836–1932)

Jules Chéret was a renowned French lithographer who produced Art Nouveau posters for music halls such as the Folies-Bergère and Moulin Rouge. Born on May 31, 1836 in Paris, France, he began an apprenticeship with a lithographer at the age of 13, continuing his education at the École des Arts Décoratifs. By 1858, Chéret had begun his career by illustrating opera posters, book jackets, and perfume packaging. After establishing his own lithography firm in Paris in 1866, the artist took care to curate each project, maintaining control over the entire length of the printing process. Chéret’s use of vibrant colors, tumultuous movement, and decisive outlines, reflected his interests in British commercial art, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, and the woodblock prints of Hokusai. His aesthetic choices in turn played an important role in the artistic development of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Alphonse Mucha. Chéret died on September 23, 1933 in Nice, France. Today, his works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, among others.