Fryday’s ad is for Bière Phénix, from maybe the first half of the 20th century, though probably before 1940. 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. There may have been a full-color version of this, but if so, I’ve been unable to find it, sad to say. I don’t know who the artist is who created this poster.
