Paul Colin’s work makes much more sense when you imagine it outside a theatre rather than inside a frame.
His posters came out of the performance culture of interwar Paris, and they have movement built into them. Faces, bodies, lettering and silhouettes are often treated as parts of the same rhythm rather than separate pieces of information.
Theatre, Performance and Parisian Graphic Culture
Colin became one of the important French graphic artists of the Art Deco period and also taught younger designers, including Bernard Villemot. We love that connection: put their work side by side and you can follow French commercial poster design changing across generations.
Early performance posters are an area where date, edition and condition deserve patience. Famous images can turn up in later exhibition or decorative printings, and genuine period sheets have often lived fairly hard lives.
Poster Spotlight
Cannes Film Festival 1946
A 1946 Cannes Film Festival poster, showing Colin applying his performance-poster rhythm to cinema rather than theatre.
View Poster
Bosch
A later advertising commission for Bosch, demonstrating that Colin's commercial work extended well beyond the performance world he is best known for.
View PosterA Note for Collectors
His best-known performance imagery has resurfaced in later exhibition and decorative printings, so treat date and edition as separate questions from the image itself — and expect genuine period sheets to show real signs of use. A perfect edge is not what makes this material exciting; the combination of performance history, printing and design is.
Explore More
Browse our Paul Colin collection, or continue with Jules Chéret, A.M. Cassandre and our Poster History guide.
Original Posters by Paul Colin
A live look at Paul Colin posters currently in the Printed Originals collection.
