Original Poster Jules Cavaillés "Le Carnaval A Nice", 1967 - Mourlot

This is an original lithographic poster created in 1967 by Jules Cavaillès for the Carnaval de Nice — one of the oldest and most spectacular carnivals in the world, a festival of colour, pageantry and Mediterranean joy that has drawn artists and revellers to the French Riviera for centuries. Printed by the legendary Mourlot Frères in Paris, this poster stands as a document of the golden age of French event lithography, when the greatest painters of the École de Paris were called upon to translate the spirit of a city into a single image.

Jules Cavaillès (1901–1977), born in Carmaux in the Tarn, was one of the defining figures of the Réalité Poétique — the movement that sought to capture the beauty and warmth of everyday life without the austerity of abstraction. Trained at the Académie Julian, professor at the École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs, Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur, and resistant during the Occupation alongside his friend the writer Jean Cassou, Cavaillès was above all a painter of happiness: sun-drenched ports, open windows, luminous still lifes, the Mediterranean light he loved. His collaborations with Mourlot Frères — the atelier that printed Picasso, Matisse, Chagall and Miró — produced some of his most radiant and collectible work.

The Carnaval de Nice was a natural subject for Cavaillès. His palette — those pure reds, warm yellows and vibrant blues that made him the poet of southern France — finds its fullest expression in a subject defined by colour, costume and collective joy. This poster is Cavaillès at his most festive, and Mourlot at its most accomplished.

The poster has been freshly linen backed — the gold standard of vintage poster conservation — ensuring the piece is stable, flat, and ready for framing.

A luminous collector's piece — Jules Cavaillès and Mourlot, for the most joyful event on the Côte d'Azur.