De Faria offers us a busy view of a resort hotel in Chamonix at the height of its summer season, with a tennis threesome in the foreground. Faria was born in Brazil and had his art training in Rio. He worked on numerous theatrical productions there and launched two magazines before moving to Paris in 1882. His many show business posters helped immortalize such stars as Yvette Guilbert, and in 1901 he designed one of the first movie posters, for a Zola-inspired film called “The Victims of Alcoholism.” About the same year, he formed the atelier to which this poster and a companion winter scene (see PAI-XII, 207) are credited.
Atelier Faria, Paris
literature: Montagne, p. 198; Tennis Posters, p. 47; Alpes, 24; PAI-LXXXVII, 290