Saturday’s ad is for La Bière Phénix, from maybe the 1940s or early 50s. From the late 1800s until the 1980s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. I’ve been posting vintage European posters all last year and will continue to do so in 2020. This poster was created for Brasserie du Phénix, which was founded in 1886 in Marseille, which is located in the Bouches-du-Rhône area in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region of southern France. A brewery had been on the same site since 1821, and a new one was rebuilt in 1872, and 14 years later it was bought by a new owner, who called it the Brasserie et Malterie du Phénix. They later changed their name to the Brasserie de la Valentine, and today it is owned by the Heineken Group. I believe this version may be the original, because unlike the previous ones, there is no logo on the glass (There are at least two different Phénix logos I’ve seen used) and there’s no text on the tray (which is used on at least one version). Also, in the first image, it appears to be signed by an artist although unfortunately I still can’t make it out. In the image at the bottom, from an exhibition at the Musée Européen de la Bière, may also be the first version used as an ad or poster, since it also has no embellishments.
