William Carqueville

William Carqueville (1871 - 1946) was an American poster designer who lived in Chicago for most of his life. He founded his own lithographic press there and designed posters for Lippincott's as well as other American literary magazines. In the United States, as in Europe at this time, literary magazines flourished and several - Harper's, Lippencott's, Scribner's, and The Atlantic Monthly in particular-helped to popularise the current style of poster design by associating it with the cultural tastes of the day. Carqueville's poster design is vintage American: clean, stylish, simple, and direct. With a couple of notable exceptions the Americans were not typically Art Nouveau at all. American artists tended to be influenced by the British more than by the ornate and flamboyant French Art Nouveau. Their work was more realistic, still highly decorative, but not filled with the swirling abstract flowers of Mucha or Beardsley. Rather they retained the graceful outlines and flat areas of colour which had originally been inspired by Japanese prints. NZ Fine Prints stock one poster by Carqueville in our vintage posters collection.