Le Grand Siècle de l’Affiche · Les Maîtres de l’Affiche
Pl 172 - Bradley
William Bradley (Will H. Bradley) · Les Maîtres de l'Affiche, vol. 4, 1895
What it is
A color lithographic poster designed by the American Will H. Bradley in 1895, issued as plate 172 in the fourth volume of Les Maitres de l'Affiche and printed by Imprimerie Chaix in Paris.
Why it matters
Les Maitres de l'Affiche was a monthly anthology that reprinted the best posters of the day at collectable size, and a plate by Bradley placed an American squarely among the Parisian masters of the form. He built images from broad unmodulated color and a heavy contour rather than shading, a graphic economy that carried at street distance and named him, back home, the American answer to the poster boom.
What to notice
Look at how the color sits in flat, unbroken fields, each shape held by a hard black outline with no gradient inside it.
Line does the work; the color just fills the room it leaves.
Provenance
- School
- Belle Époque — the Affiche (France)
- Designer
- William Bradley (Will H. Bradley)
- Printer / house
- Imprimerie Chaix
- Format
- Advertising poster
- Poster published
- Les Maîtres de l'Affiche, vol. 4, 1895
- Source
- Bibliothèque nationale de France (Gallica)
Rights: CLEAR. Public domain — U.S. 95-year rule (published 1930 or earlier). Gated by the poster’s own publication year. Cleared by registry on 2026-07-18.
Format
The full-resolution, color-managed file — restored honestly, yours to print and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan supports sizes up to 27x41" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
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