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69 1/2x48 1/2 inches. Edouard Delanchy, Paris.
Condition B+: paper loss and creases in margins and along vertical and horizontal folds; pinholes in top margin. Two sheets.
Art History has never bestowed upon Ibels the kind of fame he deserves. He studied at the Academie Julian with Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard and became one of the original members of the Nabis, participating in all of their exhibitions. In 1891 his works were exhibited side-by-side with Toulouse-Lautrec's at the Salon des Independants, and in 1893 he collaborated with Lautrec again to illustrate Le Café Concert for Marty, the French publisher. Perhaps Ibels is overlooked as an artistic equal to Lautrec and Bonnard because of his decision not to focus on painting, but rather to dedicate his art to the printed page; working for magazines, designing sheet music covers and theatrical programs. Within the Nabis he was known as "The Nabis Journalist", because of his work for many of Paris' progressive journals and the founding of the short-lived periodical L'Escaramouche. He also designed posters. In 1894 he designed the first poster for the Salon des Cent, a year before he designed this image, the largest he was to ever design. Mevisto was a mime and a comedian who had a short lived career performing fairly unpopular sketches in café concerts. Ibels had already portrayed the actor as a Pierrot in Entrée en Scene, a series of small format lithographs before he set about creating this large poster for the actor's appearance at the Concert de La Scala. Against the bleak, nouvelle-urban setting of a busy factory with active chimneys, Ibels depicts the images of the actor, in profile, a sitting peasant, a soldier and a farmer toiling in the field. All of these characters were to be the subject of the socially critical act that Mevisto would deliver. Stylistically Ibel's layout and out-lining are very similar to Lautrec's, but his colors are less aggressive and his subdued melancholy lends his images a different feel overall. Thanks to both Ibels and Lautrec, as Charles Saunier noted in La Plume, the poster, which had only been considered as attractive wall decoration, was being elevated to the higher status of a satirical and sociological vision. La Plume 90, 1893, Maitres pl. 78, Belle Epoque 245.