Picasso Posters

Picasso worked in almost every medium in art, and while his oil work is perhaps his best known work, he produced hundreds of posters in various forms, from roughly the years 1939 through 1970 or so, many of them advertising exhibitions of his other work. Costantino's book is a nicely presented collection giving us some great examples of this poster art, as well as a little background. The Introduction covers not only the beginnings of poster art and its first and most famous artists (Cheret, Lautrec), it also gives us a little technical detail on the production of posters through a variety of processes and media. Once Picasso is introduced to the form we are given a little discussion of his more common themes with reference to specific works. This chapter is concise, informative, and to the point, the very opposite of common art appreciation writing. Finally there is a large and beautiful collection of color plates, generally following (though with many exceptions) chronological order, of pieces known and unknown. It is by no means complete, and it might have been better to group them by theme or by medium than by date, but this is to split hairs. The artwork invariably shows creativity, originality, and ability, and it is all quitessentially and indisputably Picasso. A nice coffee table art book for those interested in Picasso.