Posters from 1880-1918 in huge resolution
August 1, 2008 10:00 AM   Subscribe

Art of the Poster 1880-1918 has high-quality scans of 162 posters. The images can either be viewed through a zooming window in the browser or exported in enormous resolutions (export image link in top left corner of image page). Here are some of my favorite posters: Scribner's Fiction Number, Between the Acts All Tobacco Cigarettes, Palais de la Danse, Starnberger-see, Read the Sun, Cercle Artistique de Schaerbeek, Bosch-licht, XXV Ausstellung Secession and Cabaret du Chat Noir.
posted by Kattullus (21 comments total) 73 users marked this as a favorite
 
The in-site tools can be used to crop, cut and clip the images in all kinds of ways.
posted by Kattullus at 10:01 AM on August 1, 2008


Very cool stuff. Anyone know where you can get these printed full size, or close to it, with reasonably high quality?
posted by procrastination at 10:09 AM on August 1, 2008


Very cool! I'm using the Bosch spark plugs one as the basis of the colour scheme of the web site I'm designing. (I'd link but the site seems to be borked now.)
posted by Turtles all the way down at 10:29 AM on August 1, 2008


Thanks for this. I'm currently enjoying a great Ludwig Hohlwein poster I've never seen before.

(Yes, I'm aware he was a Nazi...but such a great artist...)
posted by Bron at 10:47 AM on August 1, 2008


cool! i'd like to know where you can get these printed too.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 10:48 AM on August 1, 2008


I work in an ad agency office and we have some crazy oversize printers -- I may just have to ask about what my in-house cost would be to print some of these out after work. They're certainly large enough at full resolution, and I'd LOVE to have one of those Adler Typewriter ads in my office at home.
posted by Shepherd at 10:53 AM on August 1, 2008


Am I being dense - Can I download these full res, and if so, how?
posted by stenseng at 11:00 AM on August 1, 2008


Nevermind - figured it out - "export image."

I was in fact being dense. Welcome to Friday.
posted by stenseng at 11:04 AM on August 1, 2008


Cabourg à 5 heures de Paris (1896): Proust's favorite resort, the original of Balbec in Remembrance of Things Past. Great post (as usual)!
posted by languagehat at 11:12 AM on August 1, 2008


This is perfect fodder for the Propaganda remix project.
posted by anthill at 11:18 AM on August 1, 2008


These are beautiful, thank you!

I'd love to dl the full-res
posted by Grimp0teuthis at 11:28 AM on August 1, 2008


It is a lovely collection and it is very generous to allow hi-res download, which of course, has borked their servers.
posted by jadepearl at 11:34 AM on August 1, 2008


Ok, I admit I'm too busy/lazy to do this today, but it would be super-cool-wonderful if other Mefites would comment with links to the various other posts about high resolution poster images/vintage photographs and further websites containing such material. For example, library of congress.
posted by Muddler at 11:48 AM on August 1, 2008 [1 favorite]


I've got a 44" photo printer, and some of my business is printing for others. Pricing and more information here, but for example, a 20x30" print on photo paper will run you $33CAD. $10CAD shipping to Canadian destinations, $15CAD shipping to the US for as many prints as will fit in a tube. If you want a print, email me the link to the poster you want and how big you want it, and I'll email you back an invoice.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:01 PM on August 1, 2008 [2 favorites]


Mucha is neato.
posted by juv3nal at 2:00 PM on August 1, 2008


I love these, particularly Mucha's, of which I have a calendar. Mucha pinup girls look like me, which is good for the old s.-e.

Can anyone tell me, though, why "Cabaret du Chat Noir" showed up everywhere in the past few years? I can't tell you how many dorm rooms I've seen this in. I've received it on a postcard and seen it for sale on postcards everywhere. Was it in a movie I didn't see?
posted by Countess Elena at 3:58 PM on August 1, 2008


Love this one of a light bulb.
posted by marsha56 at 6:41 PM on August 1, 2008 [1 favorite]


I was excited about this, and I have access to large format color printers, but I'm not impressed.

All of the ones I've checked so far are kinda-crappy scans of halftones, where I know the original posters were not printed that way. A high-res scan of a book-page-sized reproduction of a poster is not going to print well. There's too much detail lost when the original photos were turned into halftones, plus CYMK registration problems, and then further loss of fidelity during the scanning of the already-degraded reproductions.
posted by D.C. at 7:09 PM on August 1, 2008


D.C. is very right. These aren't gonna make nice big prints. Small prints, you might have somethin'. Not only is the moire intense, but they're only 72 dpi at full size. Damn pity.

Really cool for reference though. Might work nice in my screensaver-images folder, too.
posted by Plug Dub In at 12:13 AM on August 2, 2008


I immediately recognized the light bulb poster for its resemblance to the cover of this book. I assumed the book cover was an original design. Funny how so many of the coolest "contemporary" designs turn out not to be contemporary at all, but rather are knock-offs of older art.
posted by jayder at 1:06 PM on August 2, 2008


Very nice. Thank you for this.
posted by mkim at 7:22 PM on August 2, 2008


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