Collectors Still Flock to Classic Vintage Posters

Art Business News, April, 2001 by Jessica Lyons

Furthermore, as wealthy collectors gobble up the handful of remaining originals, reproductions allow a greater spectrum of people to own a nostalgic piece of art.

"There are those who Will only collect true vintage posters," admitted Tomaszewsky. "But there's a huge sector who are very comfortable collecting recreations in the price points of $150 to $325--they don't want to spend $30,000, but they still want something of a higher quality than a $10 offset print. One man, a top vintage movie poster collector, missed out on the original poster for Gilda at an auction, and he was very excited to be able to fill the gap in his collection by buying our recreation."

All of [S.sup.2] Art Group's recreated vintage posters are printed on antique lithography presses. The posters are hand-pulled on the Old World presses using hand-drawn printing plates, one plate for each color in the poster. The recreations "discretely but clearly" carry the chopmarks of [S.sup.2] Art Group's atelier, preventing them from being sold as antiques.

Experts and pundits alike agree that public affection for the posters will not ebb anytime soon. Although the future may look like a hippo trying to climb through a keyhole--too many collectors combined with increasingly fewer original posters--recreations will keep vintage posters alive and in the public eye.