Original Zoo Poster "Hippopotamus" National Museum of Natural History, 1955 - Mourlot

This is an original lithographic poster created in 1955 by André Steiner for the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris — one of France's oldest and most venerated scientific institutions, founded under Louis XIII and home to some of the great collections of natural history in the world. Printed by Mourlot Frères, the poster brings together two of the most rigorous minds of mid-century Paris: a photographer-scientist turned visual artist, and the atelier that had made lithographic printing an art form in its own right.

André Steiner (1901–1978), born in Hungary and trained as an electrical engineer at the Technische Universität in Vienna, arrived in Paris in 1928 and remade himself as one of the most singular photographers of his generation. A pioneer of the Nouvelle Vision — the movement that brought scientific precision and experimental daring to photographic composition — he was among the very first users of the Leica camera, and his work was regularly published in VU, Arts et Métiers Graphiques and the leading visual press of the era. His work is held in the collections of the Centre Pompidou and the Musée Nicéphore Niépce. After the war, in which he served in the French air force and the Resistance, Steiner specialised in photography applied to science and technology — making this commission for the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle an entirely natural one, at the intersection of his two great passions.

The poster has been freshly linen backed — the gold standard of vintage poster conservation — ensuring the piece is stable and ready for framing. Vertical and horizontal fold lines are visible at the centre, honest signs of age that do not affect the image.

A rare intersection of two worlds — scientific rigour and artistic vision, by one of the most curious and underrated figures of French photography.