The Poster in Asturias

It is inspiring to see how in recent years a proliferation of initiatives have materialized in the form of monographic books or exhibitions that are serving to recover and value the work of the pioneers of Spanish graphic design. Virtually all the graphic artists that appeared in the book “Pioneers” in 2007, years later are still generating monographs that collect their work. And something similar is happening with design in the different Autonomous Communities. In 2009, the City Council of Gijón together with the Museum of the Pueblu d’Asturies organized the exhibition “The Poster in Asturias”, publishing a magnificent catalogue designed by Manuel Fernández (MF). The poster that the Museum had in the year the exhibition was held included 900 posters, drawings and sketches, although the number of copies owned by Asturian public institutions is, as one would expect, very small compared to the production that came out of lithographic industries established in the region between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth century. As Francisco Crabifosse Cuesta, a scholar of art and industrialization in Asturias, writes in a text of the aforementioned catalogue, however, “The poster has undoubtedly been one of the graphic products that has contributed most in Asturias to […]