Stylogenyin the style of Grapus (French Militant Graphic Collective)

Counterculture · 1970–1990 · Western Europe

Grapus (French Militant Graphic Collective)

Also known as Grapus, Collectif Grapus, Grapus collective

The posters and identities of Grapus, a Paris collective founded in 1970 by Communist Party members who had met in the 1968 poster workshops. Signed only 'Grapus' and the year, they served the PCF, the CGT union, suburban towns, theatres and causes, later ministries and museums: one visual idea or pun, on white paper or as a whole-sheet flag, photograph or night sky, photographs painted over beside childlike drawings, and handwritten slogans running round the image, militant but joyful. Split over the Louvre commission, the group dissolved at the end of 1990 (formally on 1 January 1991).

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A sample layout drawn from the style’s design choices, until its AI image is made.

Use it with care

Grapus images were conceived and signed collectively, and Pierre Bernard and his former colleagues publicly disputed authorship and copyright in 2006, after his Erasmus Prize and a poster catalogue, so credit 'Grapus' rather than one designer; logos such as the Secours populaire's winged hand belong to the organisations that commissioned them, and the posters' party symbols and partisan slogans (the hammer and sickle, the PLO line on Palestine) should not be reused as neutral decoration.

01

How it works

  • Write the words by hand in brush, felt-tip or crayon, in capitals or mixed case, running across, around or up the side of the picture, and sign the sheet only 'Grapus' with the year.
  • Build each poster on one visual idea, a pun on a flag, a hand, a foot, a moon or a mouth, and set it large, either alone on white paper or as the whole sheet, a flag or a photograph filling it to the edge.
  • Mix techniques on one sheet: put a photograph, painted marks, torn or pasted paper and a trembling, childlike drawing together, and scribble or paint over the photograph to turn its meaning.
  • Keep colour bright and joyful, felt-pen polychrome or a red, white and blue tricolour, most often against the white of the paper, sometimes on a full red flag, a photograph, a graded blue or grey ground or a black night ground.
  • Design collectively and argue it out: question the client's brief and seek the strongest confrontation between form and content instead of illustrating the message.
  • Serve party, union, municipal and theatre clients and, in the 1980s, ministries, the Bibliothèque nationale and La Villette, and make posters that sing rather than merely speak.

Paris region: founded in 1970 by Pierre Bernard, Gérard Paris-Clavel and François Miehe, who met in May 1968 at the Atelier populaire of the École des Arts Décoratifs and then studied together at the Institut de l'environnement; Bernard and Paris-Clavel had studied with Henryk Tomaszewski in Warsaw, and the members joined the French Communist Party. Jean-Paul Bachollet and Alex Jordan joined in 1975 (Jordan in 1976 by some accounts), and Miehe left in 1980; by 1991 the studio was on the rue de la Révolution in Montreuil. The name folds the 1968 insult 'crapules staliniennes' into 'graphisme'

02

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition
Space & hierarchy
Typography
Colour
Form & shape
Surface & texture
Ornament
Imagery
Medium & production
Tone & intent
Avoids
Modular grid, Rational & objective, Luxurious & glamorous, Abundant decoration, Horror vacui, Gloss & highlights

Palette

  • #f6f3ea
  • #1a1a1a
  • #d62b2b
  • #2552a3
  • #f5c518
  • #2e9b5f

Typefaces

  • Handwriting in brush, felt-tip marker and crayon, written on the artwork in capitals or mixed case and often running sideways or round the picture, as on Poésies Aubervilliers (1983) and Peace! (1990)

  • The scrawled collective signature 'Grapus' with the year ('Grapus 82'), written on every sheet in place of an individual's name

  • Dry-transfer display letters, such as Bogdan Żochowski's Glowworm (Mecanorma, 1975) on the Festival Olympique poster

    1976

  • Plain set roman and bold sans for the practical lines, as in 'les Bas-fonds Gorki' (1982) and the France nouvelle poster 'Joindre les points' (1979)

Known for

  • Grapus, poster probably made to celebrate the end of the Vietnam War (c. 1975–76, colour screenprint printed in blue, red and yellow, 64.9 × 91.9 cm; V&A, E.1585-1979): the Vietcong flag with a smiling Vietnamese girl's face, in coarse halftone, set inside the yellow star

  • Grapus, Festival Olympique

    (9 September 1976), poster for an FSGT international workers' sports evening at the Île-des-Vannes, Saint-Ouen, under the patronage of L'Humanité: a pink leg and foot in heavy black cartoon outline kicking a yellow crescent moon with a face, on a deepening blue ground, with 'FESTIVAL OLYMPIQUE' running up a yellow-to-orange gradient band in Bogdan Żochowski's dry-transfer face Glowworm

  • Grapus, 20 décembre 1980 (1980, offset, 59.5 × 78.5 cm; Centre Pompidou, AM 2020-1-433)

    for the Communist Party's 60th anniversary at Le Blanc-Mesnil, a Moustaki concert announced in handwriting reversed out of a tilted red block

  • Grapus, Les étoiles se marrent (1981, offset, 45 × 30 cm; Centre Pompidou, AM 2020-1-409), for the Théâtre Nuit Blanche

    a grey outlined funnel floating on a starry purple-black sky, with 'LES ETOILES SE MARRENT DOUCEMENT' in white capitals down the right edge

  • Grapus, Les Bas-fonds, Gorki (1982, offset, 45 × 60 cm; Centre Pompidou, AM 2020-1-410)

    for Gildas Bourdet's adaptation at La Salamandre, Théâtre national de la région Nord-Pas-de-Calais, a close-up photograph of decayed teeth biting a striped coloured pencil

  • Grapus, Turquie (1982, offset, 53 × 70 cm; Centre Pompidou, AM 2020-1-417), for the municipal cultural department of Fontenay-sous-Bois

    the Turkish flag with painted black bars across crescent and star

  • Grapus, Palestine (1982, offset, 60 × 74.5 cm; Centre Pompidou, AM 2020-1-422)

    for the Front démocratique pour la libération de la Palestine: a landscape photograph printed in black, white and green with a red triangle, as the Palestinian flag, fills the sheet above the handwritten line 'pas de paix sans les Palestiniens, pas de Palestiniens sans l'OLP'

  • Grapus, exhibition poster for Grapus at the Musée de l'Affiche, Paris, 27 October 1982 – 7 February 1983

    (1982, offset, 80 × 68 cm; Centre Pompidou, AM 2020-1-415): a yellow smiley with one crayon-scribbled and one painted black ear, a hammer-and-sickle eye, a tricolour-cockade eye and an outlined EXPO arrow across its mouth, on a spring, on a grey graded ground

03

Make something in this style

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04

Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

Before it

The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.

This styleGrapus (French Militant Graphic Collective)1970–1990 · Western Europe

After it

The styles that grew out of it.

No later style in the atlas grew out of it yet.

Alike in its design choices

Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.

05

Sources

  1. Ville de Thiers and Archives communales d'Aubervilliers, 'Grapus ? Connais pas ! Mais si, rappelle toi…', press kit for the retrospective at the Usine du May, Thiers, 2017 (origins in the Atelier populaire of the Arts Déco, the name, 'En 1975, Alexander Jordan et Jean-Paul Bachollet viennent les rejoindre', clients from the CGT and PCF to ministries, the CNAP, the Louvre and La Villette, 'crayonner, coller, photographier', the 863-poster fonds in Aubervilliers): https://archives.aubervilliers.fr/IMG/pdf/dossier_de_presse_grapus_cle8d3293.pdf
  2. Bibliothèque nationale de France, authority record 'Grapus' (1970–1990; founders and successor studios): https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb120636095
  3. 'Reputations: Pierre Bernard', Eye no. 3 (Spring 1991; the Montreuil studio, 'On 1 January 1991 Grapus disbanded'): https://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/reputations-pierre-bernard
  4. 'Reputations: Gérard Paris-Clavel', Eye no. 27 (Spring 1998): https://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/reputations-gerard-paris-clavel
  5. Praemium Erasmianum, laureate 2006: Pierre Bernard: https://erasmusprijs.org/en/laureates/pierre-bernard/
  6. Victoria and Albert Museum, Grapus, poster with the Vietcong flag (E.1585-1979; 'printed in blue red and yellow', 'probably produced to celebrate the end of the Vietnam War in 1975'): https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O76671/
  7. Victoria and Albert Museum, Grapus, 40th Confédération Générale du Travail, Grenoble, 1978 (E.269-1980; the CGT as client, no image online): https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O550846/
  8. Centre Pompidou, collection records for Grapus posters, gift of Vincent and Sido Perrottet, 2017: Poésies Aubervilliers, 1983, AM 2020-1-405 (https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/cRrpA7z); Les étoiles se marrent, 1981, AM 2020-1-409 (https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/ceEpoGp); Gorki, 1982, AM 2020-1-410 (https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/ceEpBo9); Joindre les points, 1979, AM 2020-1-411 (https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/cGrjaXK); La France en poésie, 1983, Ministère de la Culture, AM 2020-1-412 (https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/c8rpBbd); Grapus, Musée de l'Affiche, 1982, AM 2020-1-415 (https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/coEb8BG); Turquie, 1982, AM 2020-1-417 (https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/c8rpRpA); 3e Grand Prix de l'Affiche Culturelle, Bibliothèque nationale, 1989, AM 2020-1-428 (https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/c5nbRoB); Espace Cosmos, 1982, Ville de Montreuil, AM 2020-1-431 (https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/cGrjaEG); 20 décembre 1980, PCF, AM 2020-1-433 (https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/c8rpRKo); Peace!, 1990, Mouvement de la paix, AM 2020-1-434 (https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/cgEp4xz)
  9. Centre Pompidou, Grapus, 'Palestine' (1982, offset, 60 × 74.5 cm, AM 2020-1-422; for the Front démocratique pour la libération de la Palestine, as printed on the sheet (the record reads 'Fond démocratique'); handwritten line ending 'pas de Palestiniens sans l'OLP'): https://www.centrepompidou.fr/fr/ressources/oeuvre/cyEp6ry
  10. Fonts In Use, 'Festival Olympique 1976' (Grapus; Glowworm by Bogdan Żochowski for Mecanorma; tagged feet, moon, gradients, rotated type): https://fontsinuse.com/uses/11064/festival-olympique-1976
  11. Grapheine, 'Pierre Bernard & Grapus, graphic design of public utility' (handwriting, childlike drawing, drawing and photography on film, rejection of the Swiss style, Secours populaire 1981, the La Villette circle, square and triangle, the split, the 2006 copyright controversy): https://old.grapheine.com/en/history-of-graphic-design/pierre-bernard-grapus-graphic-design-of-public-utility
  12. French Wikipedia, 'Pierre Bernard (graphiste)' (Secours populaire logo 1981; La Villette identity): https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Bernard_(graphiste)
  13. French Wikipedia, 'Grapus' (Bachollet 1975 and Jordan 1976; Miehe withdrew in 1980; La Villette commission 1984; activity ceased at the end of 1990): https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapus
  14. Wikipedia, 'Grapus' (Jordan and Bachollet joined in 1975; Louvre commission and January 1991 split): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapus

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