Michelle's Paris Diary! Day 1 - The Poster Hunt!

Written
by
Lucy Feagins
Writer
Lucy Feagins
16th of August 2010
Galerie Montmartre's Michelle - on her first poster hunt in Paris!
Oooh la la!  Today is the first day of the Galerie Montmartre guest blog - aka Michelle's Paris Diary!  Galmont's gallery assistant extraordinaire Michelle was lucky to accompany Stephen ('Le Boss') on a buying trip in Paris recently - this week she gives us a behind-the-scenes look at their Parisian adventure...! A bit about Michelle So… hi. Thanks for checking out my guest blog! My name is Michelle and I work at Galerie Montmartre, an original vintage poster gallery in Fitzroy. In May I was super lucky to have the opportunity to travel to Paris with Stephan Trbuhovich (GM co-owner aka Le Boss). Our mission: to find and buy some posters. Wow! What an amazing experience. My first time to Paris, my first buying trip, my first time meeting some of the big names in the business. I had an absolute ball. It was wonderful! Awesome! Terrific! But enough exclamation marks, what I really want to show you is a little of what we got up to, a little of my ‘Paris in the springtime’ experience, and a little of what we love here at Galerie Montmartre. Oh and a big, huge thanks to Lucy for having as a guest this week. You are a gem Lucy. Truly. The Poster Hunt! Without a doubt the question we get asked most often at Galmont is "so, where do you find these?” After two weeks of traipsing the streets of Paris, I can tell you, it's not as easy as you might think! Le Boss has been in the collecting game for 15 years, and he has made a lot of contacts in the business. He knows where to go, and who to speak to. In France there are very few retail poster sellers. It all comes down to WHO you know, and WHERE you are on the day. So, without giving ALL our secrets away, I want to show you a few of the places we found some wonderful posters in Paris. The area around the Rue De Seine in St Germain is a heaven for art lovers. Gallery after gallery full of originals. Picasso, Matisse, Warhol… the who's who of modern art can be found here. To find posters is a little more 'difficile'. You have to know what you are looking for. And then you have to look. And look. And look.
Le Boss on the hunt at the Flea Markets
...and again at Rue de Seine
For the novice, the flea markets are a great source, although you do need to know how to bargain. In French, naturellement. The best is the Marche Aux Puces De St-Ouen (Clignancourt). A short train ride from Montmartre, this market is huge. There are two poster sellers here, Jane Moufflet and Poster Paul. Both have a wide collection of originals. Our charming friend Poster Paul will certainly have something you like. He has A LOT of great posters, from turn of the century designs to modern pieces. We found the beautiful Royale by Villemot in his secret upstairs hidey-hole. Poster Paul is a character too. Around the market they call him 'le philosophe', the philosopher. Have a chat to him, you'll soon figure out why.
Marche Aux Puces - Jane Moufflet
Marche Aux Puces - Poster Paul!
Poster Paul - Royale by Villemot
But my favourite, most secretive place, is 'the cave'. Accessed via a big set of blue doors in the back streets of Paris, this is the life collection of a very mysterious Parisian.  To get into the cave is like the beginning of 'Get Smart'!  Door after door opening and closing, left and right turns, up and down elevators. Then suddenly, there you are, in a room FULL of posters. Le Boss and I spent a happy three days underground, pulling out roll after roll, our 'to buy' pile growing steadily. Total poster collecting bliss.
Top secret poster cave!
The hunt continues....!
- Thanks so much Michelle!  Pop back tomorrow for Michelle's highlights from Montmartre...!

Similar Stories