2. L'HOMME QUI A TUÉ LA MORT (The Man Who Killed Death)
- Limited edition of 100 each
- Created from high resolution images captured from the original posters in The Century Guild Museum of Art archive
- 16.25" x 24" on heavy cardstock
- Blindstamped with the Century Guild seal
About these edition prints
Since 1999, Century Guild has been one of the world's leading galleries in the realm where Symbolist Art, Expressionist Art, and Art Nouveau overlap, exhibiting important artifacts from 1880-1920 and rare works on paper by early 20th century artists including Gustav Klimt, Alphonse Mucha, Odilon Redon, Felicien Rops, Egon Schiele; rare artifacts from pre-1920 theater and silent cinema; and rare occult-themed images.
We've always devoted a large part of our research to celebrating the legendary theater of terror, and in 2010 we hosted our first public exhibition of original Grand-Guignol posters! This year, we reproduced the shocking and macabre imagery of two rare and iconic Grand-Guignol posters in our collection as fine, large-format extremely limited edition museum prints. The original posters in our archive were photographed at high resolution, and then printed on a heavy cardstock to create the highest quality limited edition facsimiles.
About the plays
L'homme qui a tué la mort featured "the most assassinated woman in the world" (certainly in the history of any performance medium) - the voluptuous actress Paula Maxa, who by her count was murdered over 10,000 times on the small stage! Written in 1928 by René Berton, the play was presented during the era when the theater was in its heyday, and the poster features a macabre image of the scientifically reanimated head of a guillotine victim.
La Sorcière was presented by Eddy Ghilain in 1961, while Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol was under direction of Christiane Weigant; this occult-themed play was one of the last presented before the theater closed its doors forever. In this poster, a witch is crucified by daggers and burned at the stake while the entwining smoke suggests mystery by forming a billowing question mark.
About The Grand-Guignol Theatre
Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol, popularly known as "The Grand Guignol," was a small theatre that inhabited a former chapel in the Pigalle area of Paris. From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962, it introduced the idea of shock theater; creating terror-inducing performances, providing brief respites of comedic relief, then quickly horrifying the audience again. The plays explored violence and madness, and the grotesque special effects would frequently be TOO realistic- it was not uncommon for audience members to faint during performances. Contemporary artists known for sophisticated and intelligent shocking of their audiences (including Marilyn Manson, Alice Cooper, Clive Barker, and Tim Burton) mention the legend and reputation of The Grand Guignol as a major influence on their work.
