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Introduction
by Stephen H. Van Dyk and Carolyn Siegel
 The
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Library, Smithsonian Institution
Libraries, has a rich collection of vibrantly colored illustrated
books and periodicals that were created using the pochoir stenciling
process. The pochoir process, characterized by its crisp lines and
brilliant colors, produces images that have a freshly printed or
wet appearance. This display provides a brief history and description
of the pochoir process along with select examples of pochoir images
from the library's collection that illustrate costume, interior,
and pattern designs produced in France from 1900 through the 1930s.
Pochoir
plates were regularly used in French fashion journals, such as Le
Jardin des Dames et des Modes and the Gazette du Bon Ton:
arts, modes & frivolités, created by well-known artists
such as George Barbier, to illustrate costume styles and set the
tone for haute couture in the first half of the 20th century. Pochoir
images are also contained in illustrated French industrial design,
interiors, textile, and architecture folios produced primarily in
the 1920's and 1930's that document and promote the Art Nouveau
and Art Deco style. The work of major period furniture designers
and architects, such as Eileen Gray, René Herbst, Robert
Mallet-Stevens, and Charlotte Perriand are colorfully documented
in these folios. Similarly, French pattern books of this period,
consisting entirely of pochoir images of floral, insect-animal,
and geometric forms, were created to inspire primarily fabric, interior
and wallpaper designers. Featured in this display are the floral
and geometric patterns of Edouard Benedictus' Relais , insect
motifs in E. A. Seguy's Papillons and Insectes as
well as abstract forms created by Sonia Delaunay in Compositions,
Couleurs, Idées.
Pochoir
is a refined stencil-based technique employed to create prints or
to add color to pre-existing prints. It was most popular from the
late 19th century through the 1930's with its center of activity
in Paris. Pochoir was primarily used to create prints devoted to
fashion, patterns, and architectural design and is most often associated
with Art Nouveau and Art Deco. The use of stencils dates back to
as early as 500 C.E. and was also used in Europe from the 1500's
onward to decorate playing cards, postcards and to create simple
prints. It was, however, the increase in popularity of Japanese
prints in the middle of the 19th century that spurred the refinement
of the use of stencils culminating in the development of pochoir.
At the peak of its popularity in the early 20th century, there were
as many as thirty graphic design studios in France, each employing
up to 600 workers.
Pochoir
begins with the analysis of the composition, including color tones
and densities, of a color image. Numerous stencils were designed
as a means of reproducing an image. A craftsman known as a découpeur
would cut stencils with a straight-edged knife. The stencils were
originally made of aluminum, copper, or zinc but eventually the
material of choice was either celluloid or plastic. Along with this
transition of stencil materials, there was a shift away from the
use of watercolor towards the broad, soft, opaque layers of gouache.
The technique was further refined in an effort to create the most
vivid, accurately colored reproductions. Stencils created by the
découpeur would be passed on to the coloristes. The
coloristes applied the pigments using a variety of different brushes
and methods of paint application to create the finished pochoir
print.
One
of the most significant texts about pochoir is Jean Saudé's
Traité d'enluminure d'art au pochoir (1925). Saudé
offers an explanation of its technique and purpose. He included
images that illustrate the process as well as examples of pochoir
prints that demonstrate the most basic uses of pochoir to the most
complex applications of the technique. Charles Rahn Fry in his "The
Stencil Art of Pochoir" identifies trademarks of pochoir. He
states that the thick paint medium, gouache, causes a build up against
the stencil's edge resulting in a surface elevation that can be
both seen and felt. The visible bristle traces result when a brush
is moved straight across a stencil-a visual and tactile element
resulting from the manual execution of the print. With varying pressure
on the brush, a shading, or gradation, affects the printed results.
Textural variety is achieved by varying the technique for applying
the paint: daubing, spraying, spattering, or sponging are the most
common choices. Transparent watercolor can be imposed on top of
a thick opaque gouache to create a unique contrast. These elements
typify the unique quality of each pochoir print.
The
manual aspect of pochoir has been both one of its most valuable
attributes and one of its greatest failures as a medium. Pochoir
is both labor-and time-intensive, making it an expensive and slow
process of printmaking. As a result, techniques such as lithography
and serigraphy, mechanized in nature, have replaced pochoir as a
method of reproduction. Pochoir has been used in conjunction with
other medium such as engraving, lithography, or photography as a
means of adding color to a print. Each print is unique because it
is done by hand; each remains vivid in both a tactile and visual
sense.
This
SIL On Display consists of more than 35 images of pochoir prints
that capture the vibrant colors and lifestyle of the late 19th and
early 20th century held at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
Library. Included are designs for interiors and furniture, decorative
book bindings, fashion plates, and an array of colorful patterns.
The
bibliography provides a select list
of resources containing pochoir plates in the collection and also
articles and books on pochoir history and technique. A good introduction
to pochoir can be found in: Art Deco prints 1900-1925 (Princeton
University Press, 2000); Pochoir by Elizabeth M. Harris (Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1977); and Reba W. Williams' "Pochoir Printing"
American Artist 53: (1989) pp.70-75.
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