Gueules Noires: the mining lithographs of Theophile Alexandre Steinlen
Th�ophile-Alexandre Steinlen (1859-1923) is celebrated for his posters for the Chat Noir nightclub, and his lithographs of languid ladies with cats. But he also had a strong social conscience, and in this post I want to look at his powerful images of working men, and in particular his lithographs for the novel Les Gueules Noires (The Miners, literally The Black Mouths or Black Faces) by Emile Morel. This novel is a kind of companion piece to the more famous Germinal by Steinlen's friend Emile Zola. It was published in 1907 by E. Sansot, with 16 lithographs by Steinlen printed by Eug�ne Vernan. The ordinary edition on wove paper has no limitation, though it is not common. In addition to this trade edition there were 25 copies on Japon Imp�rial and 5 copies on Chine; these numbered copies have the lithographs in two states, in black as in the regular edition and in sanguine. I have no. 10 of the 25 copies on Japon. Here are the paper wraps, in both states: Th�ophile-Alexandre Steinle