Jules Cheret

Dance: Part of the "Four Arts" experimental series by Cheret.


Known as the father of the modern poster, Jules Cheret was also in his time referred to as the father of female liberation. From his studio in Paris he offered a different vision of women, reflecting the increasing changes in aspirations at a time when women were still unable to vote. Cheret’s studies of fashionable women soon became a familiar and much admired aspect of the streets of Paris, and are in part credited with the less constrained atmosphere in Paris for women.

Known as Cherettes, elegant, exuberant and often daring, these figures influenced an entire generation of women who previously had been limited to two dimensional representations – puritan or prostitute. Cheret was instrumental in changing the way in which women were depicted, and increasingly the imagery became more dynamic.

The elegant forms and brilliant colours of Cheret's work became one of the most admired and iconic of Parisian art, immortalizing the ebullient days of the Belle Époque before the First World War changed the spirit of Europe forever. It is really to Cheret that posterity owes the concept of the advertising poster as an art form.