HENRY VAN DE VELDE
Antwerp 1863 – 1957 Zurich
One of the originators of the Art Nouveau style, Van de Velde initially studied painting at the Antwerp Academy and in Paris, returning to Antwerp in 1886. He joined the Brussels avant-garde group Les Vingt and increasingly influenced by the English Arts & Crafts movement, he abandoned painting for the decorative arts, interior decoration and architecture.
He was one of the instigators of the ‘Art Nouveau’ style, a term first coined in Belgium to describe the works of Les Vingt.
His poster for the German food manufacturer Tropon is an icon of art nouveau style.
Tropon
310 x 202 mm
Original four colour lithograph, 1898, signed in the stone with the monogram.
Issued in Pan, 1898.
With their text lines at the foot of the sheet.
On stout buff wove. Occasional printing creases.
Sold
A reduced version for Pan, of the poster advertising the Tropon food supplement,
a protein processed from eggs.
Van de Velde was appointed director of Tropon’s advertising and graphic design in 1898.
His curvilinear abstract design fuses the concept of the whites of the eggs being separated from the yolks, with the manufacturer’s logo of three sparrows.
The lettering in the lithographic version Tropon ist Eiweiss Nahrung translates as Tropon is Protein, a variant from of the poster lettering which reads Die concentrjerteste Nahrung in the German posters and L’Aliment le plus concentré in the French versions.
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