Poster House is the first

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

in the United States dedicated exclusively to

poster A poster is a large sheet that is placed either on a public space to promote something or on a wall as decoration. Typically, posters include both typography, textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or w ...

s. Located in

Chelsea, Manhattan Chelsea is a neighborhood on the West Side (Manhattan), West Side of the Boroughs of New York City, borough of Manhattan in New York City. The area's boundaries are roughly 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to the south, the Hudson River an ...

, New York City, on 23rd Street between

Sixth Avenue Sixth Avenue, also known as Avenue of the Americas, is a major thoroughfare in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The avenue is commercial for much of its length, and traffic runs northbound, or uptown. Sixth Avenue begins four blocks b ...

and Seventh Avenue, the museum opened to the public on June 20, 2019.

History

Poster House was incorporated in 2015 and opened to the public on June 20, 2019. Its logo was designed by Paula Scher of

Pentagram A pentagram (sometimes known as a pentalpha, pentangle, or star pentagon) is a regular five-pointed star polygon, formed from the diagonal line segments of a convex (or simple, or non-self-intersecting) regular pentagon. Drawing a circle around ...

. The museum space, which formerly housed an

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

products repair store by the name of Tekserve, was redesigned by LTL Architects and Lumen Architecture.

Collection

When Poster House opened in 2019, its permanent collection contained approximately 7,000 posters from 100 different countries. This included 3,000 pieces related to the 2017 Women's March as well as 98 Subway Series posters. The Subway Series donation was made by the

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by Silas ...

. It includes works by

Milton Glaser Milton Glaser (June 26, 1929June 26, 2020) was an American graphic designer, recognized for his designs, including the I Love New York logo; a 1966 poster for Bob Dylan; the logos for DC Comics, Stony Brook University, Brooklyn Brewery; and his ...

, Louise Fili, and Paula Scher. The museum's collection contains works ranging from the late 1800s through the present day. The contemporary works are contained in a living archive that Poster House adds to on a regular basis. The museum draws from both its historic and contemporary collections to stage exhibitions focused on a particular artist, movement, or theme.

Select exhibitions

Poster House's first exhibition, in June 2019, featured more than 80 posters by the Czech graphic designer

Alphonse Mucha Alfons Maria Mucha (; 24 July 1860 – 14 July 1939), known internationally as Alphonse Mucha, was a Czech painter, illustrator, and graphic artist. Living in Paris during the Art Nouveau period, he was widely known for his distinctly stylized ...

. A February 2020 exhibition called ''The Swiss Grid'' examined influential Swiss design and typographic style. In April 2021, Poster House held an exhibition featuring the work of Julius Klinger. In September 2021, the museum opened ''You Can't Bleed Me'', which displayed posters and marketing materials from notable

Blaxploitation In American cinema, Blaxploitation is the film subgenre of action movie derived from the exploitation film genre in the early 1970s, consequent to the combined cultural momentum of the black civil rights movement, the black power movement, ...

films such as ''Slaughter'' and '' Coffy''. That same month, it opened an exhibition containing over 200 posters from the New York-based design and illustration firm Push Pin Studios. In March 2022, Poster House opened ''Ethel Reed: I Am My Own Person'', a show featuring poster and magazine cover illustrations Reed designed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. ''Black Power to Black People'', an exhibition featuring the history, art, and branding of the

Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist and Black Power movement, black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newto ...

, began in March 2023. That month also marked the opening of ''Made in Japan'', which focused on World War II and

Post-War Era A post-war or postwar period is the interval immediately following the end of a war. The term usually refers to a varying period of time after World War II, which ended in 1945. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum, w ...

Japanese poster art. Other 2023 exhibitions included ''Art Deco: Commercializing the Avant-Garde'', a 53-piece show examining the use of

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

in mid-century advertisements, and ''We Tried To Warn You!'', which featured environmental movement posters and advertisements from the 1970s through the 2000s.

Special projects

In April 2020, Poster House and ''Print'' collaborated on a public safety campaign called ''#CombatCOVID''. The campaign employed graphic designers including Jessica Hische, Maira Kalman, and Edel Rodriguez, who created a series of posters communicating public safety guidelines and encouraging sentiment to New York City residents. These posters were displayed on approximately 1,700 digital advertising spaces across the five boroughs. Poster House also partnered with food writer and historian Grace Young to create ''Coronavirus: Chinatown Stories'', a video series in which Young documented the difficulties small businesses in Manhattan's

Chinatown Chinatown ( zh, t=唐人街) is the catch-all name for an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, Asia, Africa, O ...

were experiencing during the pandemic. Young received the 2022 Julia Child Award, in part due to her work on the series. The award was presented to her by Poster House's Julia Knight.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Museums in Manhattan Chelsea, Manhattan Museums established in 2015 Art museums and galleries in Manhattan Poster museums Design museums in New York (state)