Art Deco from the 1930s and 1980s

Pierre Fix-Masseau (1905-1994) was a son of French sculptor Pierre Felix Fix-Masseau. He studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. While working for a luxury perfume label printer, Fix-Masseau published an ad in Nord Magazine. It was noted by Cassandre, who had created the cover of the magazine. Cassandre invited Fix-Masseau to work in his studio at Versailles as an intern and assistent. During this short period in 1928 he learned 'the rigor, the graphic precision and the composition needed for a poster', as he described the experience later.

Afterwards Fix-Masseau joined the Edita publicity company where he designed packaging, advertisements and posters. Like many Art Deco designers he had a fascination for speed and new technology, visible on his posters for car manufacturers and shipping and railway companies.

Like the slogan, the 'Exactitude' poster was part of a three-part series. A poster titled 'Confort' - in the same light letters - was designed by André Nivault in 1933, showing a sleeping car in the dark. Finally, a 'Vitesse' poster was issued the next year, although with slightly different lettering. It featured Etat's Autorail Bugatti, which broke speed records.

In 1977 the last direct train left Paris for Istanbul, once the route of the Orient Express. Publicity about the end of this legendary train resulted in a revival. American-British entrepreneur James Sherwood bought pre-war luxury carriages and had them restored for his Venice-Simplon Orient Express (VSOE): an expensive 'rail cruise' between London, Paris and Venice. The VSOE started operating in 1982 and is still popular for honeymoons and anniversary trips. In the UK, British Pullman coaches are used, on the continent former Wagons-Lits sleeping cars and Pullman coaches. Service and food aboard are of star quality.

As the train had become retro, so did the posters. The VSOE engaged 75-year-old Pierre Fix-Masseau, who was still active as a designer after more than 50 years. He created two series of VSOE posters, printed in traditional lithographic technique on art paper as well as less expensive editions in four-color offset printing. The first series depicted the countries traversed and cities on the route: London (Victoria Station), Paris, the Alps, Milan and Venice.

Once the train service actually started, the posters featuring Lake Geneva and Milan showed a paper reality only. Despite its name and the original idea, the VSOE did not use the original Simplon line. For practical reasons it ran via Zurich and traversed Austria on its way to Venice.

Pierre Fix-Masseau also created a series of interior scenes with fashionable passengers and hospitable staff in the VSOE dining and sleeping cars. Most popular amongst collectors became a poster with an elegant woman in negligee inside a sleeping compartment. She was soon nicknamed the Madonna after the heroine of Maurice Dekobra's 1925 novel The Madonna of the Sleeping Cars, also adapted to a movie. Other posters depicted diner time inside the marquetry-decorated Pullman car and a waiter serving champagne in a compartment.

Like Fix-Masseau's 1930s designs, his VSOE posters have an elegant Art Deco style, but the fonts, colors and hairstyles reveal that they date from around 1980. Characteristic for the period was a color palette of brown, orange, salmon and lavender, and the use of the re-discovered Broadway typeface.