This selection of posters…

This selection of posters by some of the era’s most important graphic artists (including Jules Chéret) advertises Loïe Fuller’s sensational and widely emulated “butterfly dance” performances, in which kaleidoscopic electric lights were projected onto her white skirts as she moved across the stage. The relatively new technique of chromolithography (four-color printing), used to produce these posters, was a perfect match for Fuller’s act: both celebrated the kinetic energy that color added to the commercial arts in the second half of the nineteenth century.