Code: 10139
Dimensions:
PRIVAT LIVEMONT Schaerbeek, Belgium 1861 – 1936
An Elegantly Attired Woman pulling on a Glove.
Pen and black ink with rose, green and black watercolor and white gouache over pencil; 1899. Signed lower right in black pen: Privat Livemont, 1899, Bruxelles. Almost surely a design for a poster. Provenance: [with Galerie Jacques De Windt, Brussels 1978; Sotheby Parke Bernet, June 12, 1980, lot 445].
Privat Livemont began his studies in Belgium and by 1885 he had moved to Paris. He exhibited in the Paris Salons of 1885 and 1886. He designed, as well, decorations for the interiors of Parisian theaters. We know that he also worked on the decor of the Hôtel de Ville in Paris. His chief interest was in designing lithographic posters in colors.
The development of color lithography in poster design may be said to begin in 1869 with Jules Chéret, one of the early masters of poster design. By the 1890s the style known as Art Nouveau had become firmly installed as one the modern formal idioms. With its sinuous and complex curvilinear movement of forms, Art Nouveau found practitioners in painting, sculpture, architecture, and in fact, in almost every aspect of design, from textiles to furniture, and as well poster design. Privat’s work as a poster designer – we cannot be sure to what degree he participated in the actual lithographic process of his posters– began in earnest after his return to Brussels at the end of the 1880s. Thus, his posters are less well known than those of his Czech contemporary Alfonse Mucha who worked almost exclusively in Paris.
While Brussels as the capital of Belgium had become a European metropolis by the 1870s and Belgian artists had begun to attract attention across Europe, Paris had so become the civic personification of fin-de-siècle European artistic culture that Privat and other Belgian artists have not, until recently, received their artistic due. Privat’s designs for posters are now very rare.
Sight size: 13 x 9 1/16 inches 330 x 229 mm.
