Artist pos­ters are pos­ters that visu­al artists have crea­ted espe­ci­al­ly for a par­ti­cu­lar pur­po­se. Becau­se they usual­ly make them for their own exhi­bi­ti­ons, they are com­ple­te­ly free in their design – which of cour­se enhan­ces their artis­tic value.

The pos­ters which have the hig­hest degree of ori­gi­na­li­ty are tho­se for which the artist hims­elf has trans­fer­red the moti­ve and the wri­ting onto the pic­tu­re sur­face. Pos­ters with the lowest degree of ori­gi­na­li­ty are tho­se for which the artist has mere­ly given the prin­ter more or less detail­ed ins­truc­tions as to their exe­cu­ti­on and has then given him free rein.

LC usual­ly gave his litho­grapher, Fer­nand Mour­lot, a finis­hed model – in the case of pos­ters most often a col­la­ge – and appro­ved the good for print only if he was ful­ly satis­fied with the final pro­of. The pos­ters are con­se­quent­ly prin­ted using the same pro­cess as his most­ly hand-signed lithographs.

The edi­ti­on size of a pos­ter by LC prin­ted by Mour­lot can no lon­ger be deter­mi­ned pre­cis­e­ly. But the fact is that this pos­ters were hard­ly con­side­red worth coll­ec­ting and most of them were pas­ted over or were des­troy­ed by wind and wea­ther any­way. The­se works are cor­re­spon­din­gly rare and in high demand today, and cor­re­spon­din­gly LCs ori­gi­nal pos­ters are now more rare than some of his artist graphics.