Baterbys Art Auction Gallery - Bios

Paul Colin
(1892-1985) Paul Colin was a French poster designer and a fan of actress Josephine Baker. The Art Deco poster he designed to publicize her La Revue Nègre launched his career. His illustrations graced her memoirs, published in 1927. He also designed a few sets for films during the 1930s including Fritz Lang’s Carnet de Bal (1937.) The meeting of Baker and Colin was fortuitous for them both. Baker found a devoted supporter who introduced her to French society and some of Paris’ artistic elite. Colin found a muse and a career that produced some 1,900 posters and hundreds of stage sets, and brought him preeminence in the graphic arts in France. Colin published a portfolio of vividly colored lithographs titled Le Tumulte Noir (The Black Craze) which captured the exuberant jazz music and dance that dazzled Paris. Fourteen of these lithographs were on view at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in a one-room exhibition titled Le Tumulte Noir: Paul Colin’s Jazz Age Portfolio. This success and the growing craze for Baker-inspired music and dance convinced him to celebrate, as well as capitalize on, the phenomenon by creating Le Tumulte Noir in 1929. Le Tumulte Noir is a marvelous achievement of Art Deco graphic design, a style which took its name from the influential 1925 Exposition of Decorative Arts in Paris.