“Tour de France 2009” excitement has lots of customers asking for cycling posters.
Below are some of the best I have come across, both those showing the sport and others advertising brands of bicycles dating back to the turn of the century:
Title: Vuelta Ciclista a Cataluna Firelli Artist: Pallares Year: 1944 Size: 40 x 27 inches (100 x 70 cm) Reference Number: 1702 Description: The Vuelta a Catalunya is the third oldest cycling stage race in the world (first time in 1911), only behind the Tour de France (1903) and the Giro d'Italia (1909).
Title: Vuelta Ciclista a Cataluna Firelli Artist: Pallares Year: 1943 Size: 40 x 27 inches (100 x 70 cm) Reference Number: 1701 Description: Vuelta Ciclista a Cataluna is one of the oldest races in Europe. The Cataluna was even contested during both world wars. Held in Spain, the Cataluna is still held annually almost a century after the first race in 1911.
Title: Cycles Guyot Artist: Unknown Year: ca 1920 Size: 46 1/2 x 31 1/2 inches (118 x 80 cm) Reference Number: 1220 Description: By allowing women the feeling of freedom, mobility, and independence, the bicycle helped to fundamentally transform social relations between the sexes. Not only did the bicycle play a large role in freeing women from the restraints of constricting fashions, it changed the idea of female beauty by dispelling the myths of women’s fragility and helplessness. The early women’s liberation movement found in the bicycle a vehicle for change; as the famous women’s emancipationist Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton proclaimed: “Woman is riding to suffrage on a bicycle.”
Title: Warszawa Berlin Praha Cycling Artist: Unknown Year: 1964 Size: 38 1/2 x 27 1.2 inches (98 x 70 cm) Reference Number: 1238 Description: This was for an annual cycling race called the Peace Race. It was the biggest cycling event in Eastern Europe. The course traveled From Berlin, to Warsaw, and Prague. The event ended after the fall of communism.
Title: Peugeot Artist: Thor Year: ca 1900 Size: 57 1/2 x 41 inches (146 x 104 cm) Reference Number: 1436 Description: Walter Thor was one of the turn-of-the-century artists designing posters for car and bicycle companies. Born in Munich, he studied in Paris for a few years and then returned to Germany. Peugeot, like many early car companies, had its origins in the bicycle manufacturing business. Here, in rich colors and with sharp outlining, Thor depicts an aristocratic lady surrounded by her dogs as she cycles toward a music pavilion. Although virtually devoid of Art Nouveau ornamentation, the graceful, winding bicycle path in the background serves to adorn the images much as a plume of smoke might in an image by the Father of Art Nouveau, Alphonse Mucha.