Swiss period Archives - Charles Loupot

Swiss period

1916-1923
Living in his parents’ apartment situated on Dapples Avenue in Lausanne, after a period of convalescence, Loupot is ready to enter into professional life.

His drawings were published for the first time in 1916. Examples include his work for concert programs. Later, his drawings feature in press advertisements — in the Feuille d’Avis de Lausanne. Swiss artists were fascinated by construction, composition and internal logic, and not so much by narrative and anecdote.

In its radical form, this school rejects all human intervention, concentrating solely on the object itself: perfect for ensuring the emphasis lay on the product at hand.

Seiden-Grieder Zurich

Colour Lithograph

129 x 91cm

1919

A dynamic composition in which the silk dress, as the object being advertised, is turned into an upwards moving spiral. The figure overlaps with the frame, and there is a deliberately unfinished, sketchy quality to the piece.

JG Weith chemiserie Lausanne

Colour lithograph

130 x 91cm

1922

Loupot was also a master typographer in addition to designer, and paid close attention to the lettering used in his posters, often using new commissions as an opportunity to create new typefaces that frequently drew from contemporary German graphic art. The figure has unnatural, bulging proportions that are nevertheless so neatly contained that they appear elegant. The pleated starched bib, not the human, is the real subject of the advertisement, offset by pops of colour in the yellow gloved hands neatly placed on top of each other, and the coral orange bow tie that is echoed in the three buttons below, and the rouged face above.

PKZ Burger Kehl & C.

Colour lithograph

128 x 91cm

1921

Designed for a clothing company, Loupot almost turned this poster into a painting with his free working of the ink on the plate. An elegantly attired man lifts a cropped cane and looks to an unknown point in the distance, the enigmatic figure with non-specified facial features is typical of Loupot’s work in this period. The bright, acid colour and elongated form suggests a modern reworking of Mannerist painting from the sixteenth century. FD

Association générale Bal des étudiants

Colour lithograph

160 x 120cm

c.1916

Loupot’s first known work, produced for a student ball whilst the artist was still studying in Lyon. The style borrows heavily from the example of Art Nouveau design, in particular the work of Eugène Grasset, whose 1896 poster Les Fêtes de Paris was a clear iconographic precedent. A Troubadour trumpeter sits on a rampant horse, with accompanying gothic Art-Nouveau lettering.

Fourrures Canton

Colour lithograph

129 x 90cm

1918

Loupot produced a number of posters advertising fur clothing in this period. An elegantly dressed woman clutches at her coat’s lapel and pillbox hat in the wind, leaning backwards slightly against the force. The fur of her clothing is contrasted by the fur of the dog next to her, and the hat extends beyond the frame, a technique frequently used by Loupot.
Marcelle Vittet, Loupot’s then partner, may have been the model for the figure.

Fourrures Canton

Colour lithograph

128 x 91cm

1924

The elegant woman, a constant feature of Loupot’s Swiss period work, reappears in another design for the fur company Fourrures Canton. Here she wears a coat and muff that encases and almost entirely obscures the wearer. The viewer is presented with a fantasy vision of the luxury woman, an image of unbridled luxury that has almost fairytale overtones through the mysterious, dreamy setting.

Cailler Chocolat au lait

Colour lithograph

128 x 91cm

1921

Stylistically, this piece is typical of Loupot’s tendency to work the lithographic medium into something approaching a painting, using smudged edges and blurred contours. An enigmatic figure clad in bright orange clutches a piece of chocolate. Her long, stylised figures are evocative of Mannerist paintings of the sixteenth century, an important influence for Loupot. The lettering was designed freehand by Loupot, and bears resemblance to contemporary work by the Swiss poster-artist Percival Pernet.

Fourrures Canton

Colour Lithograph

130 x 91cm

1919

Similar to his poster for Grieder silk, Loupot’s design is centered around an enlarged version of the product advertised – here a fur coat – with a simplified figure that breaks out of the boundary of the frame. The woman is shown as the ultimate cover girl, with punchy make-up and fashionable headgear.

Sato cigarettes égyptiennes

Colour lithograph

128 x 90 cm

1919

‘Orientalism’ refers to the sustained activities of European and North American voyagers, thinkers, and artists to map out and define an imagined vision of ‘The East’. French art had long played a role in this through the promotion of a fantasy vision of the exotic woman engaged in apparently illicit and sensuous activities. Cigarette brands were quick to use the association of luxury and indulgence to their advantage, as suggested here by the lone, elegantly clad woman sitting in a harem-type space with a cigarette in hand.