Details
The image
A profile in silhouette against stepped geometry, with lettering that behaves like architecture, stacked, spaced and ordered rather than written. The palette is restrained and the contrast sharp. Nothing is soft: every edge is meant to be seen as a decision.
Where it comes from
L’Inhumaine, made by Marcel L’Herbier in 1924, was conceived as a demonstration of modern design: painters and architects built its sets and the film was marketed as much on style as on story. Posters for it were commissions in their own right and Georges Bourgeois answered with pure Art Deco, a style that treated decoration as structure.
On the wall
It brings a vertical rhythm that most pictures do not have, which makes it useful in narrow spaces: a hallway, a strip of wall beside a door, the space between two windows. In a study it pairs well with dark wood and with anything geometric. It also works in a group of three, where its strictness holds the composition together.
In company
Pairs well with dark wood, brass and other Art Deco objects and with film and architecture posters of the 1920s. In a group of three it works as the vertical anchor: hang it first and let the other two sit lower, so the stepped geometry has air above and below. Printing of this period is what the Vintage collection is made of.
