FEATURES ARCHIVE

You’ve run the Vintage Posters department at South Kensington since 1995. How have things changed since then?
The department was small when we first started. The two annual sales were dominated by buyers from Europe and the USA, particularly from New York where poster galleries were well established. Posters were still relatively unexplored in the UK. Over the last 15 years awareness has been significantly raised; advertising posters are often hanging on the walls in American films, and in TV programmes like Friends. In 1998 the V&A showed The Power of the Poster, which became one of the most successful of any temporary exhibition at the museum to date. It certainly raised the profile of posters in the UK. Today the market has completely reversed and now the majority of Christie’s vintage poster sale buyers are individuals from the UK.

The Ski Sale seems such an unusual specialism. How and why did it first come about?
Pre-1998 ski posters were scattered between three general sales. A combination of my own personal interest in skiing and an increasing demand for posters of the mountains made me think that this was something that could work. The 2010 sale will be the 13th annual sale and Christie’s Ski Sale remains the only ski sale worldwide.

How do people tend to buy today?
In general the overwhelming reason for buying is by location, be it a specific resort, mountain region or country. On several occasions there have been clients bidding to secure the poster which is the exact view out of their chalet window!

Can you tell us about how and why these posters were originally produced?
There is often no record of how many were originally printed although a typical print run would be around 2000. Most people are unaware that railway companies often over-printed the most popular destinations and sold them to the public at the time of printing, thus establishing a collectors’ market right from the start. However, as their primary role was to advertise, most would have been put up on stations platforms, travel agents and billboards, only to be pasted over when the next poster appeared. What is therefore more important is not so much how many were originally printed but how many have survived.

Is there a modern equivalent that savvy collectors should be hoarding today?
Vintage posters were produced using stone lithography, resulting in the spectacular visual displays along station platforms in the Art Deco period. This method of production is no longer cost effective for advertisers, so sadly there is nothing comparable produced today. I think that makes these vintage originals even more desirable. 

What’s the next sale you’re working on?
The sporting theme continues in the Vintage Posters sale on 13 May, with a rare poster from the 1930 football world cup in Uruguay, just in time for the World Cup in South Africa in June.