In our sixth journey through the art of cinema posters, we reach 1916, bringing more illustrations and artworks worthy of admiration, starting with the poster for the film Bei unseren Helden an der Somme, a war propaganda piece about the German offensive in France. The film was released in 1917 in Germany but produced in 1916. The illustration is signed by Hans Rudi Erdt
, one of the leading exponents of the German Plakatstil (Poster Style), a design school that revolutionized advertising in the early 20th century. While other illustrators lost themselves in the ornamental details of Art Nouveau, Erdt and his contemporaries, such as Lucian Bernhard, embraced graphic minimalism, prioritizing clarity, flat colors, and bold typography.
Following that, Hans Zoozmann
, who, in turn, followed the lines of Art Nouveau and Art Deco; and some works by Curt Wolfram Kiesslich, whose career spanned decades, primarily in the German book market. Curt was best known for his technical versatility, but here we have a sequence of versions he created for the film Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (D. W. Griffith
).
And we continue with other artists, names that have already appeared here in other articles of the series, some new names, and, of course, the anonymous or unidentified... follow them below.
Research sources: Archiv für Filmposter, iMDB, Wikimedia Commons, Cine Ressources, TMDB, Movie Posters
