WINE ON THE WALL
Introduction by Ann Hindry historian and art critic

The poster, said Cassandre, is an “art form that provides the painter with an ideal opportunity to communicate with a broad public.” He was himself an illustrious demonstration of this point, having started out on his career as a graphic artist in order to subsidise his ambition as a painter and then finally becoming one of the greatest graphic inventors of modern times. It was therefore an excellent idea on the part of Mark Williamson to have started up a collection of posters dedicated to his restaurant by going back to the roots with a new edition of one of the master’s works. Every year since then, the Willi’s Wine Bar collection has been enriched by a new work, made specially for it by a contemporary artist.

Before Cassandre, at the turn of the last century, leading avant-garde artists such as Seurat, Picasso and, later, Bonnard, to name but a few, found the poster to be a privileged medium for capturing and communicating the visual essence of the modern life that so captivated them. All the great modern movements, from Cubism to Futurism or Constructivism, discovered ways of using this new medium in accordance with their very diverse artistic objectives. The poster’s graphic inventions, abridged modes of composition, symbolic vocabularies, effects of printed colour and technological developments all enriched their pictorial output. And the parameters particular to a well-made poster remain of great interest to many artists today. The work of the elect assembly who have responded to Mark Williamson’s request is a case in point: witness the structured graphics of Alberto Bali, the “naïve” drawing of Octave or the stylised painterly manner of Boisrond. As for Hanabusa, the poster he made for 1993 is a splendid, droll and sensual icon reminiscent of Man Ray’s woman-violin. In his poster for 2003, Tom Fowler offers his own take on Cassandre’s pared-down geometry, while Artur Cefai’s funny and tender drawing takes its inspiration from Cubism. The collection boasts a wide range of styles, whose variety is appreciated all the more clearly because they all illustrate the same theme. All these images represent concise and joyous variations on urban pleasures, which good wine both exemplifies and unifies. We look forward to the next vintage.

Ann Hindry, Paris, August 2005