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The poster has had a long if uneven history. Toulouse-Lautrec's fin-de-siècle paeans to La Goulue and Jane Avril transformed advertising into fine art, but the medium lost almost all but the message in ensuing years. James Montgomery Flagg's Uncle Sam poster for World War One recruitment typified an era that was to be brightened only by Germany's Bauhaus. The sexual revolution changed all that, however. Today's liberated new breed of poster--which often combines sensuality with social comment--is more likely to be found decorating a pad than a subway stanchion as it communicates and entertains.

Posterotica