Villemot is one of those artists we could happily keep buying. A shoe, a bottle, a figure and a few blocks of colour should not give somebody this much room to experiment, but somehow they did.
Bernard Villemot became one of the great names of post-war French advertising. His work for Bally, Orangina, Perrier and other clients is instantly recognisable without being repetitive. He could reduce a body to a curve or turn a product into part of the composition, then leave just enough empty space to make the whole thing work.
Why We Love Their Work “We particularly like the Bally posters. Seen together, they show why collecting by artist can be so enjoyable: the subject stays broadly consistent while Villemot keeps finding completely different solutions. Some are elegant, some funny, some almost abstract.”
His posters also happen to work exceptionally well in contemporary interiors, which probably explains part of their continued appeal. That is not why they matter, but it certainly does not hurt.
There are originals from different periods and campaigns as well as later printings of popular imagery, so the physical poster still needs to be identified properly. Our live Villemot collection below is a good place to see how varied his output actually was.
Poster Spotlight
Gitanes - Villemot
A Gitanes campaign showing Villemot's reduction of a figure to a single confident curve.
Cigarettes Fontenoy - Villemot
An earlier tobacco commission, useful for tracing how his style developed across different clients.
View Poster
Loto - Woman With Butterflies - Villemot
A later, more painterly composition — proof his output never settled into one formula.
View PosterWhat Should I Look For When Collecting Villemot?
His most popular Bally, Orangina and Perrier imagery has been reprinted over the years, so treat the campaign, period and printing as separate questions from the image itself before assuming you have an original.
How Do I Know It’s an Original?
Check paper, printer credit lines and dimensions against the stated campaign and period — our authenticity guide covers the checks we use across every artist.
More About the Artist
Villemot trained as a painter before moving into advertising, and his commercial work is now collected alongside that of contemporaries such as Raymond Savignac — see our Savignac guide for a French advertising artist working in a very different register at the same time.
Original Posters by Bernard Villemot
A live look at Bernard Villemot posters currently in the Printed Originals collection.
