((PKG)) POSTER MUSEUM
((Banner: Posters))
((Reporter: Olga Loginova))
((Camera: Michael Eckels))
((Adapted by: Zdenko Novacki))
((Map: New York, New York City))
((NATS))
((PHILIP WILLIAMS, FOUNDER, POSTER MUSEUM))
You’re in the home of the largest collection of posters for sale in the world. We have posters from virtually every country, and every theme. Probably half a million posters, and they’re all types of art, from little labels for perfume or water, labels for ax-handles, or sardines, for beer or wine, and then, of course, larger posters and prints of all types. A hotel was being renovated, and I bought the contents of the basement which were the trunks, and inside the trunks, I found three letters from the Wright brothers
((Chyron: AP Images))
and I sold those for, I think, 1,200 dollars which 45 years ago was a great deal of money.
((NATS))
((PHILIP WILLIAMS, FOUNDER, POSTER MUSEUM))
So, I've been long one of the bigger buyers of interesting political and especially Russian. I've had thousands of really great Russian posters. This is by Chéret, selling a lamp oil, which didn't have any odor and was really very good.
((MARIELLA AVEILES, RESTORER))
They’re like really unique and you can’t find them anywhere else. So, when you’re like missing a huge piece and you try to search for how the piece looks like, you don’t know how it looks. So, we just try to use our imagination to see how we’re going to draw this part that is missing. We pieced it in, and then we just used the color presses to basically draw in this whole part that was missing. This was missing. This whole part was missing as well.
((PHILIP WILLIAMS, FOUNDER, POSTER MUSEUM))
I was buying the types of posters that other people weren’t buying, primarily in Europe.
((ALEXANDRA ORTIZ, CUSTOMER))
I just bumped into the store, and I came in because I'm very interested in Puerto Rico posters from the sixties, from protest era type of. I love the colors and I love the fonts and, of course, I'm looking for the year I was born.
((PHILIP WILLIAMS, FOUNDER, POSTER MUSEUM))
I always buy new and old. There’s always something that’s happening today that’s interesting and worthy of saving. And so, I’ve always concentrated on ephemeral art and fashions and fads, because they quickly disappear, and the art quickly disappears as well, if someone doesn’t save it.
