This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| Please note: Artists not classified as American in our database may have limited biographical data
compared to the extensive information about American artists.
 Considered the creator of the modern approach to poster making, Jules
Cheret did work with coloration and perspective that "caused a
revolution, a color revolution" and likely inspired the Fauve painters
whose colorful works were first publicly exhibited in 1933, the year
after his death. Because of his innovations, "there was fun and
fantasy, glimpses of laughter, whirling of dancers decorating the
kiosks of Paris, dazzling the senses and creating a movement of gaiety
that had not existed before."
Jules Cheret, who was a painter in oil and pastel as well as
lithographer, was raised in Paris in a poverty level family of
artistans. His schooling ended when he was age 13, and his
father, who was a typographer, arranged a three-year apprenticeship
with a lithographer, who could teach the young man what was then the
prevailing method of design reproduction. Cheret did much
research and experimentation with design processes, and in 1858,
created his first poster, which was for the composer Jacques
Offenbach. Frustrated with his lack of success to sell
music-theme sketches to publishers, he worked in London in the 1860s to
enhance his education. There he worked for The Maple Furniture
Company and for Cramer, a publishing firm doing circus, theater and
music-hall posters, but he was not happy with these experiences.
In 1866, Cheret returned to Paris, opened a studio and began the
creative method of printing theatrical posters that made images seem
vital and three dimensional and that attracted much public acclaim with
their vivid colors. He also incorporated much text into his
posters, which was an innovation.
Of his work, it was written that he "depicted inviting, unframed scenes
of figures caught in mid action" and that his unusually copious amount
of lettering "brought the advertising component of his designs into
prominence." He initially worked in only one or two colors, but
then "introduced a new system of printing from three stones: one black,
one red and the third a 'fond gradué", which was the creation of two
colors from one stone with the top having the cool colors and the
bottom the warm colors. With this process, he did what no other
printmaker had ever done, and in the 1870s and 1880s, he worked
productively creating posters with this method of achieving
complementary colors.
With advancing years, Cheret spent more and more time in Nice with his
wife, and often they were seen strolling the streets. "He is
described as an elegant man, slim and handsome." By 1925, his
eyesight had failed, and seven years later he, age ninety-six, died.
Sources include:
Quotations are from http://www.cheret.info/
barewells.com http://www.dropbears.com/a/art/biography/Jules_Cheret.html
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