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Chéret, Jules
(b Paris, 31 May 1836; d Nice, 23 Sept 1932). French lithographer, poster designer and painter. Chéret’s formal training in art was limited to a course at the Ecole Nationale de Dessin, Paris, as a pupil of Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran. More important for his future as a poster artist were his apprenticeships with lithographers from the age of 13. He created his first poster, Orpheus in the Underworld, for the composer Jacques Offenbach in 1858; this, however, did not lead to further commissions, and he went to London where he designed book covers for the publishing firm of Cramer as well as several posters for the circus, theatre and music halls. These efforts led him to work for the perfume manufacturer Eugène Rimmel, who in 1866 supported Chéret’s establishment of a commercial colour lithographic shop in Paris. First working in one or two colours, in 1869 Chéret introduced a new system of printing from three stones: one black, one red and the third a ‘fond gradué’ (graduated background, achieved by printing two colours from one stone, with cool colours at the top and warm colours at the bottom). This process was the basis of his colour lithographic posters throughout the 1870s and early 1880s; later, when the format of posters had grown to life-size, his colour schemes became much more elaborate and varied. By 1881 his work had become so popular, and he had become so financially successful, that he was able to transfer the responsibility of his shop to Chaix & Company while maintaining artistic control.
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