When it comes to French commercial artists from the Art Nouveau period, one would be remiss to skip over Jules Cheret. Despite having passed away in the fall of 1932, his work continues to mesmerize art and advertising students alike. Here’s a snapshot of his career and some of his famous framed art:

Born in the late spring of 1836, Cheret officially began his artistic career in 1849. He started with a brief apprenticeship in France and later moved on to England. Once there, he focused his attention on London’s most famous entertainment venues. Among them were the now iconic Moulin Rouge, Olympia, Palais Garnier and Folies Bergere. During that time, he created a highly visible and coveted series of posters. Many of them featured dancing girls designed to promote the venues’ assorted shows. The collection of framed art produced for such venues includes the following prints:

• Folies-Bergere Le Miroir
• Pantomimes Lumineusses Theatre Optique of E. Reynaud
• Folies Bergere La Loie Fuller
• Alcazar d’ Ete Kanjarowa

The much sought after posters were not the only works he produced throughout his career. Cheret was also known for his paintings, book jackets and extensive advertising work with a variety of commercial enterprises. They often included elements like great coloring, watercolor washed backgrounds, floral designs and engaging subjects like actresses. Among the ones immortalized in Cheret’s works are Rene Maizeroy and Sarah Bernhardt. Examples of his commercial work include advertisements for the following companies:

• Monaco Parfumerie Distillerie, Iris Villa Monte-Carlo
• Quinquina Dubonnet Aperitif
• Saxoleine, Petrole de Surete
•  Vin Mariani, French Tonic Wine

Because of his large body of impressive artwork, he later went on to win the prestigious Legion d’honneur (1890).

Halloween is a wonderful time of year to embrace your truly spooky side. It is a time when you can go all out with scary home decor or you can take a more tasteful and intriguing route. The possibilities are endless! Let's take a few minutes to go over a few of the different color schemes you can use while decorating for Halloween.

A Halloween Color

ORANGE DECOR

You can choose to decorate with all orange and orange art. You can use a large roll of craft paper in orange and put a giant Jack-O-Lantern on your front door along with orange window treatments with crepe paper or even orange string lights on your bushes. Orange is a great accent color and let's not forget, pumpkins are orange and Jack-O-Lantern's are a fun family project!

BLACK DECOR

Another option is to use black decorations or black art. This may sound a bit depressing but when you look over the options of black art it's quite mystical and enjoyably spooky! You can put a black, skeletal tree in front of your house or on a door and use black cut out's to represent ghosts or other ghouls!

Pumpkin Decor

A wonderfully traditional option is to decorate with pumpkin art. There are tons of wonderful artistic representations of pumpkins to use and the best part, you can keep a lot of them up through Thanksgiving!

Traditional Halloween Art

Finally, a great way to decorate that is simple and festive, is to use Halloween posters. It is not as invasive as other decor schemes but gives your Halloween visitor some fun art to peruse while they visit.

A great way to decorate with Halloween art that is both fun, scary and hopefully intriguing is to do some kind of mix of the above suggestions, you can decorate with orange and black art while also adding in pumpkin and Halloween art to create a really lush and fun home this Halloween season. Don't be afraid to embrace your spooky side with these options and make sure to check out some of the other options we offer here at FulcrumGallery.com.