68 1/2x49 inches; 174x124 1/2 cm. Delanchy & Cie., Paris. Condition B+: minor creases and repaired tears at edges; minor creases and abrasions in image; small water stain at bottom right margin; slight foxing at bottom left corner. Two-sheets.
Ibels studied at the Academie Julian with Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard and became one of the original members of the Nabis, participating in all of their exhibitions. In 1894, he designed the first poster for the Salon des Cent, a year before he created this image, the largest he was to ever design. Jules Mévisto was a mime and a comedian who had a short-lived career performing fairly unpopular sketches in café concerts. Ibels had already portrayed the actor as a Pierrot in Entrée en Scene, a series of small format lithographs, before he set about creating this large poster for the actor's appearance at the Concert de La Scala. Against the bleak, nouvelle-urban setting of a busy factory with active chimneys, Ibels depicts the images of the actor, in profile, a sitting peasant, a soldier and a farmer toiling in the field. All of these characters were to be the subjects of the socially-critical act that Mévisto would deliver. Stylistically, Ibels' layout and outlining are very similar to Lautrec's, but his colors are less aggressive and his subdued melancholy lends his images a different mood. Thanks to both Ibels and Lautrec, as Charles Saunier noted in La Plume, the poster, which had only been considered as attractive wall decoration, was being elevated to the higher status of a satirical and sociological vision. DFP-II 470, Reims 753, La Plume 90, 1893, Maitres pl. 78, Belle Epoque 245.
