OUR SELECTION|11 MIN READ
How We Find and Make Vintage Poster Reproductions
Too much wonderful art stays hidden in libraries and museums. We've made it our job to find it, restore it by hand, and put it on your wall.
WRITER Moryarty
There is far too much wonderful artwork sitting in the dark. Millions of images are held in library stacks, museum drawers and private collections, untouched and unseen. We refuse to accept that as the end of their story. Every image someone took the time to draw, paint or print deserves the chance to be seen again, and we have made it our job to bring them back into the light.
You may have found a poster because it stopped you: Eugène Le Mouel's 1897 advertisement for sparkling cider, or Lucien Rudaux's 1923 astronomer's plan of the solar system. The history of that image matters, and so does keeping the design you were drawn to. That's what we do. We search for original artwork all over the world, restore it by hand, and print the results as vintage poster reproductions you can live with.
Too much good artwork remains unseen
A collection can keep an artwork safe and still leave it unknown to the people who would love it most. An image can sit in an archive for decades without ever being seen by someone who would hang it in their hallway. We go looking for exactly those images, because finding them is what widens the circle of people who get to enjoy them.
An older work carries its own purpose and its own design choices. A 1936 American poster urging people to eat fruit was printed to carry a public health message, and its bold red lettering and simple fruit shapes were chosen for that job. Those specifics give you more to enjoy than just a general impression of oldness. When you know what a poster was for, you see the choices in it, and that makes it more interesting to live with.
Some of what we find is truly astonishing. The biologist Ernst Haeckel made a plate of comb jellies for Kunstformen der Natur, his book of drawings of forms found in nature, completed in 1904. The book's plates went on to influence Art Nouveau artists, and to us this one is exactly the kind of forgotten gem worth bringing back into view.
We value unfamiliar images as seriously as we value the famous ones. The fact that a poster isn't a household name doesn't make it a second choice. If an image makes you stop and want it on your wall, the fame of its title is irrelevant.
Suggested posters
- Xochimilco, a 1944 tourism poster of Mexico's floating gardens shows how an overlooked design can still stop you.
- A 1938 issue of Mexican Art & Life is exactly the kind of printed image that stays in a collection unless somebody goes looking for it.
- Hiroshige's Eight shadow figures from 1842 is a quiet and precise study of hand gestures, the kind of image that stays with you.
We search across countries and collections
Since Moryarty began in 2015, we have been building toward the largest catalogue of vintage posters we can. Today that ambition has a concrete scale: more than 2,000 posters, and the number keeps growing. We're not interested in a small, safe selection. We want the broadest range of original designs we can find, because that's what lets you find the one that feels like yours.
Our search reaches around the world. The posters in this letter alone come from Japan, Mexico, France, Germany, England and the United States, and they span more than two centuries. We look for posters from all over the world, and the search continues.
We look in libraries, in museums, in online collections, in private collections and in markets. Each of those is a different route to the same thing: artwork that sits beyond the familiar list of poster titles everyone has seen. Libraries and museums hold more than they can show at once, and many are digitising parts of their archives. Online collections make it possible to study a collection at a distance. Private collections and market stalls sometimes offer a single design that has stayed out of sight.
We seek original designs across every subject and period, because a catalogue built on one taste is a catalogue that misses most of what is good. An 18th-century plate of twenty tropical shells and a 1936 world map of dog breeds sit comfortably side by side. Each one is an individual work with its own identity, and that's what we're trying to preserve and pass on.
Suggested posters
- Lucien Rudaux's 1923 general plan of the planetary system brings the solar system to your wall with scientific care.
- Eugène Le Mouel's 1897 sparkling cider poster turns a waiter and a bottle into an unforgettable image.
- Georges Hamel's 1950 motor-racing poster for the Pau Grand Prix puts sport beside astronomy and advertising in the same search.
- Kamisaka Sekka's 1909 Mount Fuji print shows the search reaching Japanese design of the early twentieth century.
We keep the original design and colours intact
We restore every artwork by hand, and we're careful with it. The decisions that matter were already made by the artist, sometimes a century ago. Our job isn't to impose a new design or to modernize what is old. It's to preserve what is there, as faithfully as we can, so that the poster you hang is the one the artist made.
Colour, line, lettering where it exists, the arrangement of forms: all of these contribute to an image's identity. Change the green of a leaf or the weight of a line, and the poster is no longer the same thing. We take care with each of these elements during restoration, because keeping them intact is what keeps the chosen work recognisable.
Our standard is simple: the closest reproduction we can make to the source artwork. The original design and the original colours guide everything we do. We don't chase a version that looks better to us or more fashionable. We chase the version that is true to what the artist made.
A scientific chart and a commercial advertisement need different care. Restoring a chart means keeping its exact lines. Restoring an advertisement means keeping its lettering and its colours as they were printed. Faithful restoration respects the particular design of each poster, without flattening them all into a single style.
Suggested posters
- Henri Matisse's White alga on red and green background is a cut-out that keeps its sharp, fresh colours.
- Matisse's Nice, Work and Joy from 1947 combines fruit, palm and colour in a poster made for the city of Nice.
- Ikko Tanaka's Kabuki poster from 1974 shows how bold calligraphy can carry an entire design.
Art belongs in every kind of home
Art has been addressed to people with high incomes for far too long. Galleries price original works out of reach, and the message that art is for the wealthy has been repeated so often that many people believe it. We reject that idea completely. Wealth should never decide whose home holds artwork they love.
Accessible prices matter to us because everyone deserves a choice of art. An image chosen with care makes a home personal: it's the difference between a room that is decorated and a room that is lived in. You shouldn't need a large budget to live with an image you love. Liking it should be enough.
In our shops in Barcelona and Lisbon, we see people of all ages, genders and origins buying posters every day, and many give us wonderful feedback. Our posters are for a student decorating a first flat, for a family choosing something for the kitchen, and for anyone else who wants a home that feels like their own.
Suggested posters
- William Morris's Strawberry Thief brings a hand-crafted pattern into any room without pretension.
- Audubon's Pink Flamingo is a natural-history print that suits a wall of any size.
We print every poster in our Barcelona workshop
Finding and restoring an image is only half the work. The other half is making a print you can put on your wall. We print every poster in-house in our Barcelona workshop, which means the image goes from our hands to your wall without leaving our care. That control over the whole process is why we can stand behind the result.
Every reproduction is printed on museum-quality fine art matte paper, 230 gsm. This is the same carefully chosen surface for every poster, whether it is a deep blue ocean print or a bright red advertisement. The paper is substantial, with a soft, non-reflective surface. It holds colour without glare, so the image looks right from any angle.
We use archival pigment inks, which are designed to last. These inks produce durable, high-quality reproductions, and they let us print the subtle tones of an old illustration as well as the flat colours of a modern geometric poster. The result is a print whose colours stay as they were printed.
When you want to finish a poster, we offer frames in aluminium and pine from our classic range, plus magnetic wood frames. The colours run from black and white to light oak and gold, so you can match the frame to the poster. Frames are sold separately, but when you order one with a poster, we frame the poster free of charge and ship it framed, right across Europe. The methacrylate glazing is lighter and tougher than glass, and it arrives without breaking. If you haven't chosen your poster yet, our selection is a good place to start.
So here is our invitation. We hope you'll find the artwork you want to see every day among all our posters and give it a place on your wall. It can change the room. The catalogue keeps growing, because we want the next image you fall for to be there when you look.
Suggested posters
- Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa is the most famous wave in art, and it still feels fresh on a wall.
- A botanical study of Coffea arabica turns your kitchen into a place with a story.
- Will Bradley's The modern poster from 1895 is a peacock-feather design that still looks ahead of its time.
Did you know?
- Henri Matisse created his famous paper cut-outs in the last decade of his life, often working from bed or a wheelchair after illness made painting difficult.
- Lucien Rudaux was an astronomer as well as an illustrator; his planetary charts were praised for their scientific accuracy.
- The Great Wave off Kanagawa is a woodblock print from Hokusai's series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, made around 1830, not a painting.
- John James Audubon's Birds of America includes 435 hand-coloured, life-size plates, published between 1827 and 1838.
- William Morris founded a design company in 1861 that championed handcrafted textiles and wallpapers, influencing interior design for generations.
- Moryarty has restored and reproduced more than 2,000 vintage posters since it was founded in 2015.
Questions about where our posters come from and how they are made
Where can I find original vintage posters for sale? You can order faithful vintage poster reproductions from our catalogue, restored by hand and printed in our Barcelona workshop on fine art paper. We ship across Europe in 2 to 4 days, depending on the destination. If you'd like to see posters in person first, our shops are listed on our store locator.
How good is the print quality? Every poster is printed in our Barcelona workshop on a thick matte fine art paper, with inks chosen to hold their colour over time. A1 and A2 posters travel in rigid cardboard tubes. A4 and A3 go flat with a rigid backing board, or rolled in a tube.
What sizes do the posters come in? We offer four sizes for wall display: A4, A3, A2 and A1. Every poster is available in these formats, so you can choose the one that fits your space.
How do you restore a vintage poster without changing its design? We restore every artwork by hand, and we never change its original design or colours. Each reproduction stays as close to the original as we can make it.
Do you frame posters? We sell frames separately in aluminium, pine wood and magnetic wood, in several colours. When you order a frame with a poster, we frame the poster free of charge and ship it framed across Europe.
About the author
Moryarty Vintage Posters is a European company founded in 2015, with four shops: two in Barcelona and two in Lisbon. We have built a collection of more than 2,000 vintage posters, found in libraries, museums, online collections, private collections and markets. Every artwork is restored by hand, and every poster is printed in-house in our Barcelona workshop. More than ten resellers, including design shops, bookshops and concept stores, carry our posters across Europe. We care about this work because we believe everyone deserves art on their walls.