Roaring Twenties poster – Obrad Nicolitch, c. 1925

LARGE THEATRE POSTER – ROARING TWENTIES

“Nina-Vrés” colour lithograph designed by Obrad Nicolitch (1898-1976) and published around 1925 by Imprimerie Centrale in Marseille. Size. 197 x 65. (Mounted on linen: 204 x 73 cm.)

In the 1920s, Marseille, as France’s second-largest city and a bustling Mediterranean port, experienced a vibrant cultural transformation during the “Années folles” (Crazy Years). In this era, marked by economic growth and artistic innovation, Marseille was a major national centre for popular entertainment. It possessed France’s oldest music hall, L’Alcazar, founded in 1852, which was reputed to have the toughest audience in France. Other music halls such as Le Palais de Cristal, which closed in 1930 and one of whose last stars was Josephine Baker, Le Grand Casino, L’El Dorado, Le Châtelet and Les Variétés, in addition to Le Gymnase, which supplemented its diet of legitimate theatre with music hall and cinema. These music halls were surrounded by night clubs: Le Domino, Le ‘British,’ Le Régina, Chez Suzy, Le Thérèse-Bar, Le Tabaris, and by cabarets such as Ouistiti, Le Chansonia, Le Chat Rieur and La Pie qui chante. In all cases, from the largest music hall to the smallest night club or cabaret, popular entertainment in Marseille relied on a mixture of indigenous and imported, Parisian, entertainment.

It must have been one of these nightclubs where starlet Nina-Vrés had her finest hours.

Price: Euro 2.350,-