William Carqueville Biography

William L. Carqueville (1871-1946) trained as a lithographer in his father's firm. He studied in Paris and returned after 1900 to work for the Chicago Tribune. He lived in Chicago for most of his life. He founded his own lithographic press there and designed posters for Lippincott's as well as other American literary magazines. His style was somewhat influenced by another American poster artist, Edward Penfield.

In the United States, as in Europe at this time, literary magazines flourished and several-Harper's, Lippincott's, Scribner's, and The Atlantic Monthly in particular, helped to popularise the current style of poster design, associating it with the cultural tastes of the day.

Carqueville's work is classically American: clean, stylish, simple, and direct. American artists tended to be influenced by the British more than by the ornate and flamboyant French Art Nouveau. With the exception of Will Bradley and a few others, the Americans were not typically Art Nouveau at all. Their work was more realistic, still highly decorative, but not filled with the swirling abstract flowers of Mucha or Beardsley. Rather, they retained the graceful outlines and flat areas of colour which had originally been inspired by Japanese prints.