Printed Originals presents
Raymond Savignac The gag · original posters, 1953 designs to 1997
One idea. One picture. Read in a second, from across the street.
The French called it the visual gag. Here are the jokes, and the posters they were told on.
Set-up Go to the Musée de l’Homme, the Museum of Man.
Punchline The man is the H. He walks out of the title in striped shoes.
Sold · Printed Originals Archive · View the record →Gag 2 · The one-second test
From across the street.
A poster on a wall gets a second. Maybe less. Savignac drew for that second: thick outline, flat colour, one idea.
Try it. Step back from the Loterie nationale and see what still reads.
At 1 m you read it all.
618 prizes, from 4,000 to 3 million francs. The draw is on Saturday 6 October. The printer’s line, in Toulouse.
At 5 m the small print goes.
“loterie nationale” and “Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe” still read. The prize list does not.
At 15 m the words blur.
The picture holds. A horse whose body is a safe, door open, packed with money bags. A jockey stands beside it.
At 30 m: horse, money.
A grey horse and a yellow heap. A race, and a fortune. That is the whole message, and it still lands.
The gag is the headline. Everything else is detail.
Gag 3 · Set-up, punchline
Get the joke.
Every poster here is a set-up and a punchline. The punchline is under a plain card. Lift one card at a time, hover over a poster, or show them all.
-
Tintin orange · 1962 design
Set-up One bottle of Tintin orange. Two thirsty friends.
Punchline Two straws, crossed in the neck of the bottle. Snowy has parked his bone on his head.
Sold · Printed Originals Archive · View the record → -
Voltaire · 1979
Set-up An exhibition about a writer, at the Bibliothèque nationale, January to April 1979.
Punchline Voltaire writes the title himself. One sweep of his quill is the headline.
Available · from £300.00 · View this poster → -
Tefal · c.1960 design
Set-up A frying pan that never sticks.
Punchline So the chef tosses the whole menu at once: sausages, an egg, a chop, a fish. Nothing stays behind.
Sold · Printed Originals Archive · View the record → -
Savignac chez Citroën · 1983
Set-up An exhibition of Savignac’s work for Citroën, Neuilly-sur-Seine, June to July 1983.
Punchline The double chevron grows an arm and shakes hands with a man carrying rolled posters.
Available · from £500.00 · View this poster → -
Euro 84 Finale · 1984
Set-up The final of Euro 84, Parc des Princes, 27 June, 8 pm.
Punchline One kick, and the ball comes back as eight: a flag for each team at the finals.
Available · from £540.00 · View this poster → -
Grand Prix de Sculpture · 1996
Set-up A sculpture prize from the Académie des Beaux-Arts.
Punchline The statue on the plinth is an arm in an Academician’s embroidered sleeve. It hands over the laurels itself.
Available · from £260.00 · View this poster →
No caption needed. That was the point.
Gag 4 · Timing
A good joke gets told twice.
Some of Savignac’s designs were printed again, years after the first campaign, while he was still at work. Both kinds are original posters. What differs is when the paper was printed, and the small print tells you.
Told on the day · Euro 84 Finale
- Designed
- 1984, for one match: the final at the Parc des Princes
- Printed
- For the event, before the night itself
- Clue
- The date and the kick-off are part of the design: “le 27 juin à 20 h”
- Signature
- “savignac” printed in the sky, left of the player
Told again · Gitanes
- Designed
- 1953. The campaign poster was printed by Bedos, 114.5 x 155 cm
- Printed
- 1995, at 33 x 25 cm: a later edition, in Savignac’s lifetime
- Clue
- A copyright line up the left edge: “© by SPADEM 1995”
- Signature
- “savignac” printed lower right, as on the 1953 design
Also told again. Tintin orange is a 1962 design; the campaign poster is 116 x 160 cm. Ours is 80 x 60 cm, sold to us as a 1980 edition. Our Tefal is described as a Mourlot edition with a dry stamp. We are checking its date in hand.
Neither is better. A first printing has the date of the joke. A later edition has the joke at a size that fits a wall at home.
Gag 5 · Close reading · Gitanes
One second to get it. One minute to read it.
Gag 6 · Signatures
He signed the drawing. The press did the rest.
Savignac wrote his name into the artwork, in small lowercase script, and it was printed with the picture. 12 of ours carry it. 1 shows his name only in the printed title. We looked at every margin of every poster here, at up to six times magnification: no pen, no pencil. We have found no hand-signed Savignac.
Plate-signed
Savignac drew his name into the artwork, so every copy of the poster carries it. This is normal for him. It does not mean hand-signed.
On this poster: “savignac” in small black script beside Voltaire’s coat tails, printed with the picture. Available · from £300.00 · View this poster →
Show all 12 in the archive ↓
Unsigned original
Printed in Savignac’s lifetime for the exhibition it announces, with no signature of his. Still an original: made with the artist, not after him.
On this poster: his name set in type in the title, and no script signature anywhere on the poster. Available · from £500.00 · View this poster →
Show this poster in the archive ↓Hand-signed
Signed by Savignac in pen or pencil on that copy. We have not found one in our archive. If we do, it will lead this page.
After Savignac
Printed after his death in 2002, or reproduced without him. None of ours is dated after 2002. Our Perrier is dated only as 1972 or later by its postcode; we are checking its year.
Gag 7 · The Printed Originals Savignac archive
Every Savignac we have held.
8 available now · 5 sold. Told on the day first, then the jokes told again. Sold posters show no price.
Gag 8 · Collecting
The punchline is big. Read the small print.
- Signature lowercase script, printed with the picture
- Margins printer, publisher and copyright lines
- Dates event dates, phone numbers and postcodes in the design
- Size campaign posters are often far larger than later editions
Is any of these signed by hand?
Not so far. Savignac drew “savignac” into the artwork, and it was printed with every copy. We have checked every margin of every poster here and found no pen or pencil signature. If we ever handle one, we will say so on the poster’s page.
First printing or later edition: how can I tell?
Read the margins. Our Gitanes carries “© by SPADEM 1995” on a 1953 design. Our Perrier’s publisher line has a five-digit postcode, used in France from 1972. Event posters print their own dates: Euro 84 gives the night of the final. Size helps too: the 1953 Gitanes campaign poster is 114.5 x 155 cm; ours is 33 x 25 cm.
Were they printed in Savignac’s lifetime?
Every poster here that we can date was printed while he was working, up to the Gendarmerie open day of June 1997. He kept making posters long after he settled in Trouville in 1979.
Hand-signed, plate-signed, unsigned original, after: what do they mean?
Hand-signed means Savignac signed that copy himself; we have none. Plate-signed means his signature is printed in the design, as on almost all of ours. Unsigned original means a lifetime printing with no signature of his, like Savignac chez Citroën. After means a later reproduction made without him; none of ours is dated as one.
Can I see more detail before I buy?
Yes. Ask us for detailed photographs of any poster: the signature, the margins, the edges and the back.
Condition and framing
We grade condition in six steps and describe every mark (condition grading). Framing is optional, and all our framing is conservation framing (framing original posters).