International nostalgia at the Christie’s 2015 Poster sale

Discover India from the back of an elephant or just take the tram to the zoo: in the pre- TV, pre-internet era, artistically designed posters were the most successful means of advertising. The Christie’s auction in London is now offering a wide range of historic poster art…

Advertising as art

Today, Hollywood stars are paid to appear in adverts in the desperate bid to attract buyers’ attention. Increasingly sophisticated commercials are created, in the hope that they will go viral and be shared across the globe. Sometimes, one thinks with longing of the artfully designed promotional posters of the past – a relatively unobtrusive way to promote a company’s products or services. Surely, Renato Casaro, John Alcorn and Frank McCarthy, who designed numerous 007 movie posters, never imagined that their work would be worth thousands, in some cases hundreds of thousands, of euros and would be celebrated with dedicated exhibitions in famous galleries around the world. Christie's, meanwhile, is celebrating poster art in its own way, with a specialist auction that time-travels through the history of advertising – as the video shows.

The Christie’s Poster sale takes place in London on 4 June 2015. All lots and other information can be found at www.christies.com.