Seduced! Fans & the Art of Advertising

The exhibition reveals how commercial art – a dynamic, seductive art-form – emerged during the late nineteenth century to play a pivotal role in generating and sustaining a culture of consumption among the growing middle classes.

Focusing on the interwar period and the aesthetics of Art Deco, the exhibition includes a colourful array of fans made to promote leisure activities such as travel, dining & shopping. Luxury brands are equally well represented with fans advertising champagne, perfume and haute-couture.

Many of the fans exhibited feature designs by masters of commercial art including, Georges Barbier, Leonetto Cappiello and René Gruau, whose striking pochoir & chromolithographic prints evoke a remarkable age of decadence, glamour, exoticism and the birth of modern consumer culture.