Clément - Gladiator CYCLING Huge Stone LITHOGRAPH Limited Edition BICYCLE
Item History & Price
Artist: Clément-Gladiator / MASSIAS /AnonymousTitle: "Cycles Gladiator" - c. 1896/1997Medium: Original Color Lithograph Hand-Pulled and Hand-Printed from Stones on an old vintage German lithography press using antique white 320 gm, 2mm thick Coventry rag vellum woven paper.Signature: Signed by the Artist on the PlateEdition: Limited Edition of 250 impressions (all unnumbered)Size: 50 x 38 inchesPrinter & Publisher: Dieter R...aoul Sauer was a specialized publisher of hand-pulled color lithographs replicating the classic stone printing techniques of vintage lithographic advertising posters during the Belle Epoque period and into the early 20th-century poster printmakers. Working in collaboration with various leading European museums, Sauer published a series of world-class advertising posters featuring the "old masters" of the French Belle Epoque poster, as well as early advertising posters for travel, sports, food, wines, and cigars.Publishing Institution: Kunstgewerbe Museum, ZurichAbout the Advertising Image: Classic Bicyle / Cycling advertising image. Classic Art Nouveau imagery that really pops against a dark blue/purple background!Provenance: Hatay Stratton Fine Art, Northampton, MassachusettesAbout the Poster: The Cycles Gladiator poster was produced by printer G. Massias of Paris. Only four of the original Massias printing still exist today. The Gladiator Cycle Company, Clément-Gladiator (from 1896), was a French manufacturer of bicycles, motorcycles and cars based in Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, Seine. Throughout its productive life from 1891 until its demise in 1920 the company was variously owned by: the founders Alexandre Darracq and Paul Aucoq; from 1896 by a London public listed company Clément, Gladiator & Humber renamed in 1901 Société Française des Cycles Clément & Gladiator and from 1906 by 'Vinot et Deguingand'. The French bicycle brand was initially started in 1891 by Alexandre Darracq (naturally, like other cycle pioneers, he later manufactured automobiles). The company was later bought by fraudster Harry Lawson. He created the famous Emanicipation Run of 1896, the drive from London to Brighton, now reenacted each year as one of the key events in British motoring history. But first he was a bicycle designer and bicycle company owner, the creator of the ‘Safety’ bicycle, the grand-daddy of today’s rear-driven low-mount bicycle with gears. The Rover Safety, designed by John Kemp Starley some six years later, is usually listed as the first modern bicycle – the rider was lower to the ground than on a highwheeler so was safer – but, in fact, he was beaten to it by Lawson. His ‘Bicyclette’ of 1879 was ahead of its time: it was thought undignified, too complex, and although popular for a time in his home town of Brighton, it failed to sell nationally. Undeterred, Lawson carried on designing bicycles through the 1880s. (The name for his bike later became one of the French words for bicycle). But it’s as a financier – first of bicycle companies, later of motorcar companies – that Lawson was to achieve fame. Or, rather, infamy. His motorcar syndicates and company flotations were often based on fraudulent claims. Despite possessing a brand with perhaps the most iconic poster in cycling, Lawson came a cropper, Cycles Gladiator being one of the casualties.
