ART AND COMMERCE

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20653, 29 June 1935, Page 8

ART AND COMMERCE

FRANCE FOLLOWS AMERICA, ARTISTS AS SIGN PAINTERS, PARIS, May 22. The artists of France are following in the footsteps of. those in America; they are adapting their talents to commercial uses. The circumstances are not quite the same, perhaps, but the results are. In America industry in the last yeaT or two has been calling in artists as consultants for the purpose of aesthetising 'its products. In France the artists, pressed by the growing depression and deprived more and more of the patronage of the wealthy, are turning in numbers to industry to support them. Even celebrated artiste are taking part in the movement. You will find several big names among the exhibitors at the Galerie Bagnes show. It is an exhibition of shop signs. All eorte of commercial enterprises are pictorially represented. Marc Chagall offers a representation of a dairy, Serge has painted a butcher shop, using vigorous reds in his painting. Pauline Peigniez has a sign advertising a house which deals in religious objects. Levy-Strauss advertises a wholesale confectionery. The wine drinkers of the nation, and that means all Frenchmen, are appealed to by Brianchon and Savin and others. Advertising wine should prove a profitable field to the artiste for several reasons. One is that all France drinks wine. Another that the wine producers have recently awakened to the value of advertising. A third is that of all pro- 1 ducts wine should be one of the easiest for an artist to praise. Most artists are connoi«*eeurs of it.