Chisholm Gallery

Profile

For artworks originally intended for the trash after only a few weeks of display, vintage European advertising posters have remarkable staying appeal and power. At the Chisholm Gallery, collectors can find pieces from the 1890s to the 1960s. Within these decades, however, owner Gail Chisholm focuses on her own passions: mostly French, Italian, and Swiss images from between the two world wars, and the decade immediately following the second. Subject matter’s driven by content—they’re art now, but began their visual life as ads—and varies from food, wine and entertainment to travel, transport, expositions and sports. Binders, organized by genre, contain photos of all 3,000+ posters in Chisholm’s ever-changing stock, kept fresh by the owner’s frequent buying trips to Europe and around the States. Typically, in addition to the gallery of works hung on the shop’s brightly colored walls, about 200 pieces are set out on a table to give clients a real feel for the offerings. Particularly popular are graphically modern works by Cassandre and Eric Nitsche and the more romanticized motifs of Cappiello and D’Ylen. All posters are protectively mounted on museum paper and then backed with linen; Chisholm works with a framer in Long Island to provide her clients with the perfect finished piece. — Andrew Sessa