Leonetto Cappiello - Caricatures

Caricatures

Cappiello started his career as a caricaturist illustrating in journals like Le Rire, Le Cri de Paris, Le Sourire, L'Assiette au Beurre, La Baionnette, Femina, and others. His first album of caricatures, "Lanterna Magica," was made in 1896. In 1898, he moved to Paris, and his caricatures were published in Le Rire for the first time.

In 1902, a 24-page book of his caricatures was published entitled Gens du Monde ‘people of high society’ for the magazine L’Assiette au Beurre. The following year a 38-page book entitled Le Théâtre de Cappiello ‘the theatre of Cappiello’ was published for a special issue of Le Théâtre magazine, this included captions written by theatre critics. Cappiello began to move away from caricature work favouring posters. In 1905 a final publication 70 Dessins de Cappiello ’70 drawings by Cappiello’ by H. Floury, included black and white lithographic prints, as well as a handful of colour images produce by the process of pochoir. The technique was popular at the time as a way of adding colour to an image relatively cheaply, and would involve colour being hand painted onto an image with stencils.

Cappiello made his name during the poster boom period in the early 20th century, with designs markedly different from premier poster artist Jules Chéret. His first poster, for the newspaper Frou-Frou, was made in 1899.