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REF. TA-HAR-0011| Publication | Harper's Bazar |
| Publisher | Harper & Brothers, New York |
| Date | Thanksgiving 1894 |
| Cover artist | Louis John Rhead (1857–1926) |
| Style | Art Nouveau |
| Palette | Deep green, terracotta orange, slate lavender, cream |
| Format | Original magazine issue |
| Condition | Complete, marks and tears on page edges |
In 1894, the American poster craze reached the magazine stand. Rhead's Thanksgiving design brings Art Nouveau line, Japanese-inspired water forms and a harvest palette to a weekly magazine, treating the cover as a work of art in its own right. The same design is held, in poster format, by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Harper's Bazar, Thanksgiving 1894This is an original issue of Harper's Bazar from Thanksgiving 1894, published in New York by Harper & Brothers. The magazine still used its original spelling, Bazar, which it kept until 1929. The cover was designed by Louis John Rhead, and the issue is complete, with some marks and tears along the page edges.
The cover treated as a work of art.
Louis John Rhead (1857–1926) was one of the most prominent poster artists in America during the Art Nouveau period. Influenced by the Swiss artist Eugène Grasset, he became a leading figure in the poster craze of the early 1890s. His posters were exhibited at the Salon des Cent in Paris, three of his designs appeared in Les Maîtres de l'Affiche, and in 1895 he won the Gold Medal for Best American Poster Design at the first International Poster Show in Boston.
The cover shows a red-haired woman in a patterned dark dress holding a bowl of fruit beneath an orange grove. Around her, sinuous water forms with a Japanese influence meet stylised corn and foliage, in deep green, terracotta orange, slate lavender and cream. The composition reflects the period's view of the poster as an art object.
The same design, in poster format, is held in the Leonard A. Lauder Collection of American Posters at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (1984.1202.149). Original magazine issues from the 1890s survive in small numbers, and complete copies with Rhead covers are sought after by collectors of American graphic design.
Posters and covers from the 1890s poster craze are collected as early works of American graphic design.
Weekly magazines were read and discarded, and paper of the period is fragile, so complete original issues are scarce.
Rhead's designs are held in major collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which supports interest in original printed examples.
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