Grand Guignol/La Sorcière
Artist
Designer Unknown
Printer
Imp. Harford, Paris
Datec. 1950
MediumOffset Lithograph
Dimensions23 1/2 x 15 1/2 in. (59.7 x 39.4 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LinePoster House Permanent Collection
Object numberPH.5808
DescriptionLa Sorcière (The Witch) of 1961 was one of the last plays presented at the infamous Grand Guignol Theater in Paris. The theater opened in 1897 and closed its doors for good in 1962. Known as the “Theater of Horror,” it staged dramas and vignettes that were so bloodcurdlingly realistic and grotesque that a doctor was employed to tend to the many spectators who fainted each night. This occult-themed play by the popular dramatist Eddy Ghilain appeared while Christiane Wiegant was director of the theater. Ghilain wrote numerous theater pieces for the Grand Guignol between 1957 and 1962, often serving as actor and set designer for these works as needed. The poster, by an unknown designer, shows a mostly nude woman, impaled on a stake and dripping blood as the smoke from the kindling below her rises in the night sky to form a question mark; it is entirely characteristic of the lurid style of the theater’s posters from the very beginning. On View
Not on view
