The poster was designed by Italian-born Leonetto Cappiello (1875-1942), a self-trained artist who lived in Paris and obviously shared this love of wine (he also contributed with outstanding poster-ads for French spirits).
Incidently, I happen to have stumbled upon a very interesting twin-volume book from the early thirties last summer. This was in one of these village attic-sales (vide grenier) where people sell all kind of stuff on the sidewalks. This heavy two-volume book was waiting for me to leaf it through. It is titled La France Travaille (France at Work) and it has excellent pictures of workers in all the manual professions of that time in France, from artisans and farmers to fishermen and heavy-industry workers. Of course there was some content related to winemaking and of course I ended up buying the two volumes. The 1930s' was an era where the worker was at the center of many studies, including photographical, and you find this trend with an aestheticism underlining the work values and national pride in many other countries, like in Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States (where Lewis W. Hine's Men at Work, published in 1932, is a landmark of social photography).
Each of these two books features more than 400 pages of pictures (probably made with large-format wooden field cameras), and this looks like a mine of visual information with also extensive writing explaining the different trades. The writer for the vignerons chapter is Maurice Constantin-Weyer who I learned elsewhere was a 1928 laureate of the Prix Goncourt and who wrote L'Ame du Vin (The Soul of Wine) in 1932.
As the growers and winery clerks had their place in this book along with other type of workers, this photo story will give you a glimpse of how all these people worked circa 1930. The twin-volume book was published in 1932 but we can imagine that the pictures were probably shot between 1928 and 1932 by now-anonymous excellent photographers scouring the regions.
This first story will be centered on the vineyards. You will have a larger version of each picture by clicking on them.
Kudos to the anonymous (unnamed in the book) photographers who shot all these great pictures.
Thanks so much for posting these wonderful 80 year old photos. Such a shame that the photographers weren't named in the book. And, love the poster - definitely another age.
Wink Lorch
Posted by: Blog | December 15, 2011 at 06:11 PM
que belleza, salud
Posted by: rafa bernabe | December 15, 2011 at 08:14 PM
Yes, thank you for this post!
Great!
best, Gottfried
Posted by: Office | December 15, 2011 at 08:34 PM
Beautiful!!! Love these old photos!
Posted by: Ray Walker | December 30, 2011 at 07:28 PM
Where can i get this book?
Posted by: Daniel Lifshitz | September 26, 2012 at 05:31 PM
You can find the book I guess in specialized book stores dealing with vintage books. You may need to look around, in Paris for example.
Posted by: Bertrand | September 27, 2012 at 07:52 AM
Great stuff - thank you for sharing! Sulfur spraying a bit scary though...
Posted by: Nagai | November 02, 2012 at 07:34 AM