Shocking

There's a post over on the cool Enoch Bolles site that brings up the topic of early 20th century images portraying women smoking cigarettes, a rare and shocking event at that time. Enoch Bolles used smoking as a prop for a magazine cover of 1914. But Raphael Kirchner, in the same year, showed a young Ziegfeld beauty actually savoring her nicotine. The shocking thing these days is that ANYone is smoking, knowing the damage that it inflicts.

Raphael Kirchner —Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic — 1914

Parisienne

Raphael Kirchner — from La Vie Parisienne — 1915

Fantasy Postcard

The last time we saw Raphael Kirchner's work on this site was over a year ago, and it was a cool series for Flo Ziegfeld's theatre. Here, Kirchner has created a lovely fantasy postcard, utilizing a technique that appears to be a form of pointillism, a time-consuming effort that seems rare in commercial illustration.

Raphael Kirchner — postcard design — 1910

Les Amours de Pierrot

Raphael Kirchner created a series of paintings for Flo Ziegfeld's Century Theatre lobby called Les Amours de Pierrot, depicting Ziegfeld showgirls as the various loves of Pierrot. Pierrot's dream follows a series of temptresses representing the Deadly Sins and a final one called Expiation, where he pays for his dalliances with his head on Salome's platter.

Pierrot's Dream

Pride

Envy

Sloth

Anger

Les Amours de Pierrot

Temptation, above. Expiation below.