The Orsay Museum is well known for its extensive collection of turn-of-the-century art, also called la Belle Epoque, around 1900, among which is Impressionnism. A number of those impressionists actually started making a few francs by working in … advertising !
The museum’s current temporary exhibition focusses on the billboards and newspaper ads produced by Steinlen, Toulouse-Lautrec and many others in Paris between 1850 and 1910, and how they changed the city’s landscape. Whether they advertised a political party or a cabaret show, the whole city was covered in them.
The fact that they were all painted by hand make them real pieces of art, and are treated as such by the curators. They also reveal much about the era, good or bad, such as the open racism and antisemitism that were existing back then in the French society.
Of course they are written in French, but the translations and explainations provided make this exhibition fascinating and accessible. Well worth a visit.