Comprising more than 100 works from one of the most prominent private collections of film posters in the world, Cinema on Paper: The Graphic Genius of Movie Posters is a tribute to the superior talent of an international group of artists whose creativity captured a movie’s essence with arresting precision. Selected for their masterful design, these mass-produced hallmarks of the film business represent comedies, musicals, Westerns, sci-fi thrillers, dramas, and other cinematic works that date from the turn of the 20th century to the early 2000s. Posters of iconic features, such as Casablanca and The Godfather, stand alongside foreign films and memorable cult classics including Le Samouraï and Barbarella.
Best known internationally as an avid vintage film poster collector since 1977, Dwight Cleveland assembled the largest privately held and fully curated film poster archive, which he sold in 2016. It represented 115 years of film history and was comprised of over 45,000 items. There were posters from 58 countries and an average of 22 per “Best Picture” Academy Award winners. His personal collection now stands at about 4,500 items. He lives in Chicago where he renovates single family homes, authors books, and pursues his interest in historic preservation.
I don’t know what it is that first causes a person to become interested in a film—whether it’s the cast, or whether it’s the title, or whether it’s that first image. I believe it is a combination of all of these. That’s the creative part of poster work—that image and what it does and how it affects an audience.
Think of them as snapshots of dreams, intense jolts of visual stimulation that convey the focused essence of a cinematic experience. I’m talking about. . .the Golden Age of movie posters, roughly from the 1920s through the 1950s. . . when the visual emphasis was on painting and illustration.
Sometimes I have chosen to see films just by their posters.
Beyond “beautiful books” Assouline is invested in the promotion of culture. It has created the “first brand of luxury culture” by opening boutiques where one can discover a world of good taste, excitement and intellect, a place where “culture can be acquired” within a luxurious environment.
Assouline has revolutionized the coffee table book
An oasis of art and culture