Pamono Fritz Rehm, Der Kenner – Cigaretten Laferme Dresden from Les Maîtres de L’Affiche, 1898, Original Lithograph

Fritz Rehm (1871 – 1928)

Der Kenner (The Connoisseur)
Cigaretten Laferme Dresden

Year of ideation: 1897
Year of printing: 1898
Lithograph on wove paper
Publisher: Chaix

Size: 40 x 29 cm

from the famous collection “Les Maîtres de l’Affiche”
Issue # 31, Plate #124, June 1898

One of the RAREST and most attractive plates of the entire collection

Bottom left:
Les Maîtres de l’Affiche PL. 124
Imprimerie Chaix
(Encres Lorilleux & Cie.)

Bottom right, blind stamp of publisher / edition

Excellent Condition

Literature:
“The Complete Masters of the Poster”, edited by Stanley Appelbaum, Dover, New York, 1990, p. 124
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About the collection “Les Maîtres de l’Affiche”

Les Maîtres de l’Affiche (The Masters of the Poster) is one of the most prestigious and influential art publications in history Its 256 color plates have preserved for each succeeding generation a wide-ranging selection of outstanding posters from the turn of the century, when that popular art form had reached its first peak.

The earliest printed posters were chiefly typographic, with relatively few illustrated examples. But in the second half of the nineteenth century, when all types of commercial products, including printed matter, were being aesthetically upgraded, largely thanks to various arts-and-crafts movements, serious artists such as Manet began to see new possibilities in the poster medium. It was especially Jules Chéret (1836-1932) whose unique combination of artistic, technical and entrepreneurial talents was to pave the way for a true poster industry. After Chéret opened his own print shop in Paris in 1866, his work continued to inspire numerous emulators in Europe and America. from 1881 on, his shop operated as a branch of the large Chaix firm (Imprimerie Chaix)

By the 1890s the streets of every great metropolis were enlivened by large, colourful posters.
This Chaix publication, Les Maîtres de l’Affiche, was issued as separate numbered sheets measuring 40 x 29 cm. Every month for 60 months, from December 1895 through November 1900, subscribers received a wrapper containing four consecutively numbered poster. On 16 occasions the monthly wrapper also contained a bonus plate, a specially created art lithograph. Jules Chéret, artistic director of Chaix and father of the modern poster, emerged with the lion’s share of the plates, one Chéret being included in each monthly issue of four, and seven of the 16 unnumbered bonus plates.

Of the 97 artists represented in Les Maîtres de l’Affiche, some were preeminent painters and printmakers at various stages of their careers: Toulouse-Lautrec, Denis, Bonnard, Vallotton, Puvis de Chavannes. Others were famous illustrators and cartoonists of the period, still well known to art collectors and bibliophiles. Forain, Caran d’Ache, Ibels, Willette, Boutet de Monvel, Léandre. But there were also all those whose names say “poster,” the conquering pioneers of the new medium. Chéret himself, Mucha, Steinlen, the Beggarstaffs, Grasset, Penfield, Parrish, Bradley, Hardy The list could go on and on.
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About the Artist

Fritz Rehm (1871 – 1928) was a German painter, illustrator, poster artist, and designer, associated with the Jugendstil movement.

Little is known about Fritz Rehm’s life. Born into a Catholic family, his father owned a business. He enrolled at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts in April 1890 and studied under the sculptor Syrius Eberle

In 1896, he produced one of his first and most famous posters, Cigaretten Laferme, printed in Leipzig. In 1898, he was one of the few German graphic designers selected by Jules Chéret for his magazine Les Maîtres de l’affiche (1895-1900).

In 1897, he collaborated with Jugend, the new Munich weekly magazine created by Georg Hirth and Fritz von Ostini, which initiated, among other media and events, the Jugendstil movement. Rehm also formed a relationship with Otto Fischer, based in Dresden, who was the promoter of the “poster style” (Plakatstil), the Art Nouveau counterpart of this advertising medium, which was then experiencing considerable growth in Paris and most major Western cities.
He exhibited at the Vienna Secession and later opened his own studio.

Between 1905 and 1914, turning to decorative art, he worked as a designer for the firm Peill & Söhn (Düren), which specialized in the production of luxury glass objects, as well as for Lauchhammer Bildguss, a Munich-based company that produced small bronze sculptures.
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Important:

. The listing is for the original lithograph.
. The cover of the issue by Jules Chéret is shown for reference.