BEST IN SHOW
Original exhibition posters are a !ourishing collecting "eld and while work by certain big-name artists can fetch huge sums at auction, there are still bargains to be had, "nds
This month, thousands of art lovers will "ock to David Hockney’s new exhibition, ‘The Arrival of Spring’, at the Royal Academy in London. Artists of his stature are big business for the world’s leading galleries and museums, and posters, books and postcards are an essential source of revenue.
Vintage posters have been popular with collectors for many years now, and prices for the rarest travel and #lm posters can be prohibitively high. Yet, the niche #eld of art exhibition posters is exciting, relatively unexplored and undervalued: an a!ordable way to buy into the story behind an artist’s career.
‘I’m interested in posters that re"ect a particular era’, says Stephanie Connell, a former Bonhams specialist and now a dealer in vintage posters. ‘It’s all about a strong visual image.’ David Bownes, a leading authority on poster art and author of several books on poster history, agrees: ‘It’s a li$le-known fact that artists are o%en involved in the design of the poster themselves. In a sense, when you buy an original exhibition poster, you’re also buying a li$le piece of that artist.’ David Hockney has a keen interest in poster design and is considered by many to be a master of the genre; his unmistakable exhibition posters have become a collector’s discipline in their own right.
Despite this, there is still plenty of room in the market: for although an early (and rare) poster for The Threepenny Opera (1974) fetched £3,400 at Sworders in 2020, a delightful exhibition poster from the Bradford Fiesta of 1988 sold for £160 at Forum Auctions, the London-based book and works-on-paper auctioneer. ‘Richard Hamilton’s exhibition posters are currently undervalued,’ says David Bownes. ‘Peter Blake, too, when you consider his importance to the Pop Art movement. Gilbert & George posters are also incredibly a!ordable.’ Bownes has a photographic Gilbert & George ‘New Art’ poster from 1972 on his website (Twentieth Century Posters) priced at £275. Other poster artists to look out for are Lucian Freud, Damien Hirst, Keith Haring, Allen Jones, Francis Bacon and Banksy.
The mid-century lithographic posters from Galerie Maeght in Paris and Barcelona (publishers of the distinguished art magazine Derrière le Miroir), for Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Kandinsky and Marc Chagall exhibitions are all highly collectable too.
Prices are on the rise. Originality is key. Novice collectors need to understand the crucial di!erence between a vintage lithographic poster printed speci #cally to advertise an exhibition at a particular time, and later re-strikes and also photographic reproductions. These o%en turn up on eBay or Etsy, o!ered at ‘ bargain’ prices and they look similar on screen to the real deal. As with the connoisseur of modern #rstedition books, the true collector seeks a poster in its original state – as a gallery visitor might have seen it on the opening day. Take the famous Warhol-Basquiat ‘ boxing’ poster from 1985. It’s a striking image. A reproduction, of inferior quality, might be bought online for a few pounds. But an original poster, published by the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York, with provenance, might set you back several thousand dollars at auction.
For the rarer and more valuable posters, provenance is essential. Canny buyers should also double-check poster dimensions and learn to discriminate
FACING PAGE A lithographic poster by David Hockney to advertise a ‘Towards Art’ exhibition of 1962. It sold for $1,342 at Bonhams, Los Angeles in February 2011.
between qualities of paper and density of ink. A case in point is Andy Warhol’s ‘Marilyn Monroe’ poster for the 1989/90 retrospective at the Ludwig Gallery in Cologne. It’s a genuine screenprint rather than the more usual lithograph, and all the more collectable for that. The poster is available at AntikBar priced at £1,250.
The most valuable exhibition posters tend to be signed, with the pop artists Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein leading the pack. But these are o$en the exception to the rule, and signatures should be approached with caution: an applied signature without provenance or a legitimate backstory is next to worthless when it comes to added value.
Admi!edly, unlike limited editions and etchings, print runs for exhibition posters are rarely recorded. Still, it is safe to assume that posters from the early days of an artist’s career are genuinely scarce. Printing costs prohibit small private galleries from advertising their shows. Consequently, most art exhibition posters date from the period when an artist’s career takes o", with a move to a grander gallery. There are known exceptions. The earliest David Hockney-designed poster from the Victoria Street Gallery’s 1962 ‘Towards Art’ exhibition is rare. A signed example sold for $1,342 (£964) including premium at Bonhams, Los Angeles in 2011.
This is a lesson for us all. One of the # rst rules of collecting is to buy what you like. If you discover a talented young artist, buy the poster and take care of it. There’s no guarantee that it will increase in value but, with a shrewd eye and a li!le bit of luck, your grandchildren may thank you for it.