Poster1893

A poster for a dance made of light

Folies-Bergère: La Loïe Fuller, Jules Chéret (1836–1932)

Poster: against a black ground a red-haired dancer whirls a huge veil of pale yellow and orange silk, one leg kicked up behind her. Orange lettering reads Folies-Bergère at the top and La Loïe Fuller at the bottom. — Image: Paris Musées, Musée Carnavalet (AFF1121). Public domain (CC0).

Loïe Fuller was born in Illinois in 1862, moved to Paris in 1892 and quickly became a star at the Folies-Bergère. She danced in billowing silk, swinging it with rods sewn into her sleeves, under rotating coloured spotlights, and she patented lighting equipment, coloured gel filters and stage control systems of her own.

She chose Jules Chéret, known as the father of the poster, to design her poster for the Folies-Bergère. Chéret had founded his own lithographic press in 1866 and always drew directly on the stone, even after he handed the everyday printing over to the firm of Chaix in 1881.

This poster dates from 1893. It was printed in four different colour combinations, probably, the V&A suggests, to give an impression of her four dances. Here she spins against a black ground, the silk shading from pale yellow to orange.

Chéret designed more than 1,000 posters in the first twenty years of his press. The V&A says that with his work posters began to be seen as an art form, and that he led other artists, such as Toulouse-Lautrec, to try the medium.