Australian stone lithograph movie posters
Movie Posters: A Matter of Life and Death 1946 | Australian 1906-71 + MO Collection + Australian stone lithographs | Captain Marvel | Cinema Art Films | Die Grosse Wette 1916 | Don't Look Back 1967 | King Kong 1933 | Le Doulos 1962 | Lost Horizon 1937 | Metropolis 1927 + US Press Book + Japan 1929 | Ned Kelly Polski + List | Ostatni Etap 1948 | Pandora's Box 1929 | Polish Film Posters | Robert Detheux - Belgian | Smiley 1956 | Steel City Pictures / Greetings from Wollongong | The Healer 1935 | V for Vendetta 2019 | Variety 1925 |
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| Smiley, 1956. French stone lithograph poster. |
Australia was one of the last countries in the world to produce movie posters using the stone lithograph process, doing so until the early 1970s. The posters were for movies released in that country and of both local and international origin. Stone lithography had been in use since the earliest days of cinema in the late 1890s. It gave rise to a poster that was more artistic than that produced using other methods of printing then available, such as letterpress and woodblock, as the image was drawn on stone by an artist and then printed in multiple colours by hand or using rotary presses. The artist would use as their reference the film itself or still photographs from it, and in addition they would add freehand decorative features and text. The resultant poster was closer to an original work of art than that provided by the later photolithographic (colour offset) printing process which was machine-based and first came into common commercial use from the 1920s. Blocks of flat colour and fine tonal gradations were distinctive features of the stone lithograph, with the quality of the final image very much dependent upon the skill of the chromist. The texture, precision, and ability of the artist to create original, and unique, painterly fonts, was seen as one positive outcome of a process which was manually intensive but nevertheless well served the early motion picture industry prior to World War II and, in some instances, beyond. A good example is the herein illustrated large (47 x 63 inches) French poster for the 1956 Australian film Smiley. In that instance the stone lithograph process was used to promote the film's initial release in that country, shortly after the Australian release. The original French artist - Boris Grinsson - based on a viewing of the film or collection of original still photographs, produced a portrait of the young star of the movie in amongst reproductions of a number of events from the film. The painterly elements of the French poster are obvious - finely drawn facial features, splashes of colour, graphic lettering - especially when compared to the more photograph-based American equivalent. Another version of the image was produced by Grinsson - it was more colourful and possibly the original image which was then copied onto stone for the lithograph. This image was likely used for subsequent re-releases of the film. As regards the Australian promotional material, for Smiley there were both original stone lithograph daybill and 1-sheet posters. The American release saw the use of the offset lithograph process.
Why was the seemingly redundant stone lithograph process still used in Australia when, by the end of the 1950s, the international trend was clearly towards the use of photolithography? Italy was a good example of where, especially after WWII, painterly poster images were being printed using photolithographic techniques. The same was common in Russia, where graphically simple watercolours were the basis for the majority of colour offset movie posters from the 1940s through to the 1960s, after an impressive stone lithograph tradition during the 1920s and 1930s. Meanwhile, in Australia the Sydney-based firm of Robert Burton Pty Ltd produced daybill and 1-sheet posters with the stone lithography method right up until 1973, long after other countries had abandoned it. Print runs were usually up to around 3,000 posters, and while the size of Australian 1-sheets were usually 27 x 40 inches, that of daybills varied over time viz. 13 x 30 / 15 x 35 / 15 x 40 inches. Burton had cornered the Sydney, Australia movie poster market during the 1960s, prior to 1971 when the firm of M.A.P.S. Litho Pty Ltd entered the scene and made use of the by then cheaper and higher quality photolithographic process. This method had been used extensively in the United States, for example, since the early 1930s, replacing the stone lithography that had been utilised and refined for the production of prints and posters there since the 1860s. Russia largely abandoned the use of stone lithography within the film industry during the 1930s, despite having developed it to a fine art the previous decade through proponents such as the Sternberg Brothers. France was one country which made use of stone lithography through to the 1950s, as did Argentina and India. Argentina produced especially fine stone lithograph posters during the 1930s and 1940s, right up until the early 1970s. The reasons for this continued use by both Australia and Argentina are not entirely clear, though may be related to the limited markets in those countries and economies of scale as compared to the United States, Europe and Russia. The number of firms in Australia which made use of stone lithography to produce movie posters during the twentieth century was quite numerous. Many had contracts with major Hollywood, British, Asian and European production companies and their local distributors. They included the following, arranged roughly chronological according to known examples, with company titles given as they usually appeared along the base of the posters:
* Clements Photo Litho - 1900s e.g.: For the Term of His Natural Life 1908.
* Theatrical Printer, Albion Place, Sydney - 1910s.
* Richardson Studio - 1920s - early 1960s. Consistently produced perhaps the highest quality Australian stone lithograph daybill posters for the Paramount Studio and its subsidiaries. Throughout this period the posters were often identified as printed by W.E. Smith Ltd, Sydney (refer below), though the artists involved were part of the Richardson Studio. Early Richardson Studio posters were distinguished by the use of a wide variety of coloured inks, finely drawn borders, precise typography and high quality reproduction of facial features and other elements of the image e.g. Mannequin 1926; The Big Clock 1948. Reference: Richardson Studio Gallery. Internationally speaking, they were some of the finest stone lithograph movie posters ever produced.
* Marchant & Co. Ltd Printers, Sydney - 1920s - 1950s. High to medium quality e.g. Metropolis 1928. Later known as Marchant Graphics. Associated with UFA and their local Australia - New Zealand distributor during the 1920s, Cinema Art Films. There is no doubt that Australian stone lithograph movie posters of the 1920s are generally of much finer quality than in later decades. The first of these two posters is the most expensive Australian film poster known ever to sell at public auction, fetching c. US$250k.
* Rotary Press, Sydney - 1920s e.g. The Last Laugh 1924.
* The Swift Printing Co. Sydney - 1920s e.g. The Marriage Market 1923.
* Morrison & Bailey Print, Sydney - 1920s e.g. The Unknown 1924, Cheating Cheaters 1927.
* Hegarty Studios, Offset Press Printers - 1920s e.g. Ned McCobb's Daughter 1928.
* Victory Publicity Pty Ltd - 1940s e.g. Captain Blood 1942.
* Colourcraft Printing Co. - 1950s e.g. Jedda 1955.
* Chromo Print, Sydney - 1950s e.g. The Shiralee 1957.
* Robert Burton Pty Ltd - 1960 - c.1973. The quality varied from high to low. Burton was a very busy studio during the 1960s and early 1970s, producing a large number of daybills and less so 1-sheet and 3-sheet posters for the Australian market. They were the last Australian firm to use stone lithography for movie posters, ceasing production in 1973 e.g. The VIPs 1963, Marooned 1970. The daybill poster for The VIPS is one of the better quality stone lithographs, featuring the exquisitely drawn face of Elizabeth Taylor.
Additional information
Check out the Moviememories website of Australian movie poster retailer and collector John Reid for detailed information, and numerous examples, of stone lithograph movies posters produced in Australia. In association with that, see also the Australia-based Vintage Movie Posters Forum for discussions around related issues.
References80 popular stone lithograph movie posters, Filmposters.com [website]. Available URL: https://www.filmposters.com/results.cfm?page=3&search=search&searchbox=&catid=39&title=&director=&star=&size_id=0&decade_id=0&country=.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteRobert Burton Printers posters were copied from original posters by the lithographic process (offset). The original was traced on the back with a transfer crayon and then transferred to grained zinc plates one for each colour. The litho artist then with their expertise. Drew on the plate with a greasy crayon and rubbed by hand to create the tunings using the key on the plate, from the poster, to achieve the colour mix and registration.
This is a quick comment on the hand litho process.