The end of the 19th century marked the beginning of a hitherto unknown era in art. While art had until then been viewed from a predominantly aesthetic perspective, art experienced a connection with typography and advertising. Until then, paintings had preferred to be presented on fine canvas, but now paintings were competing with the medium of the poster. The creation of advertising media was in the hands of lithographers and draughtsmen who showed little talent in the artistic field. The increasing industrialisation made advertising a flourishing branch of industry. Artists increasingly took over the artistic design of attractive posters. In Paris Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec caused a sensation with his advertising for the city's dance theatres. In London, offices developed that were completely specialized in artistic advertising. A new art form called advertising technique was established.
Alick Ritchie was born in Scotland under the name Alexander Penrose Forbes Ritchie. He studied at the Belgian Academy of Arts and chose London as his home. Here he worked in the wide field of advertising. Ritchie was a caricaturist, designed posters for the London Underground and contributed images to various magazines. Alick Ritchie became famous for his portraits. He often painted public figures. Actors like Charlie Chaplin and politicians like Winston Churchill belonged to his motives. Ritchie painted portraits that were detached from reality. The faces often have a mask-like expression. Angular surfaces are fragmented by dark lines and the colour palette is reduced to a few nuances. In the portraits a beginning abstraction can be seen. If an art-historical classification were to be made on the basis of appearance, the works would be assigned to Cubism. Cubism, however, did not have a clear stylistic direction. Contemporaries report that Alick Ritchie mocked the development of Cubism. The portraits can therefore be classified as caricatures and thus a fine form of satire.
Alick P.F. Ritchie designed a total of three series for cigarette cards. Among them are some of the most famous portraits of the artist, which in this context are openly referred to as caricatures. At that time, cigarette manufacturers issued so-called cigarette cards to stabilize the packaging. Many well-known artists made pictures for the cards. Ritchie designed his straight-lined caricatures in 1926, with which he achieved great fame. In 1934 he created Animalloys a card set with 48 individual pictures. The cards showed the head, front legs, torso and hind legs of each animal. One animal could be put together from three cards. The syllables of the animal names were also divided on three cards. The eager smoker could thus combine fantasy animals and the matching names. An idea which the artist had already realised in earlier years as an illustrator in a book. Later, Ritchie made a series with a film reference and thus returned to the art of caricature.
The end of the 19th century marked the beginning of a hitherto unknown era in art. While art had until then been viewed from a predominantly aesthetic perspective, art experienced a connection with typography and advertising. Until then, paintings had preferred to be presented on fine canvas, but now paintings were competing with the medium of the poster. The creation of advertising media was in the hands of lithographers and draughtsmen who showed little talent in the artistic field. The increasing industrialisation made advertising a flourishing branch of industry. Artists increasingly took over the artistic design of attractive posters. In Paris Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec caused a sensation with his advertising for the city's dance theatres. In London, offices developed that were completely specialized in artistic advertising. A new art form called advertising technique was established.
Alick Ritchie was born in Scotland under the name Alexander Penrose Forbes Ritchie. He studied at the Belgian Academy of Arts and chose London as his home. Here he worked in the wide field of advertising. Ritchie was a caricaturist, designed posters for the London Underground and contributed images to various magazines. Alick Ritchie became famous for his portraits. He often painted public figures. Actors like Charlie Chaplin and politicians like Winston Churchill belonged to his motives. Ritchie painted portraits that were detached from reality. The faces often have a mask-like expression. Angular surfaces are fragmented by dark lines and the colour palette is reduced to a few nuances. In the portraits a beginning abstraction can be seen. If an art-historical classification were to be made on the basis of appearance, the works would be assigned to Cubism. Cubism, however, did not have a clear stylistic direction. Contemporaries report that Alick Ritchie mocked the development of Cubism. The portraits can therefore be classified as caricatures and thus a fine form of satire.
Alick P.F. Ritchie designed a total of three series for cigarette cards. Among them are some of the most famous portraits of the artist, which in this context are openly referred to as caricatures. At that time, cigarette manufacturers issued so-called cigarette cards to stabilize the packaging. Many well-known artists made pictures for the cards. Ritchie designed his straight-lined caricatures in 1926, with which he achieved great fame. In 1934 he created Animalloys a card set with 48 individual pictures. The cards showed the head, front legs, torso and hind legs of each animal. One animal could be put together from three cards. The syllables of the animal names were also divided on three cards. The eager smoker could thus combine fantasy animals and the matching names. An idea which the artist had already realised in earlier years as an illustrator in a book. Later, Ritchie made a series with a film reference and thus returned to the art of caricature.
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