Bold lettering shouts “Maurice Chevalier” across a rich blue field, immediately setting the tone of a 1917 poster designed to catch the eye from a distance. Below, Charles Gesmar renders a stylized portrait in warm oranges and pale creams: a youthful face tilted in a playful, almost conspiratorial grin, with sharp blue accents around the eye and a single curl of blond hair falling forward.
A simple potted flower—flat, graphic, and bright—balances the composition and adds a note of charm that echoes the performer’s stage persona. The clean outlines, limited palette, and sweeping negative space place the work firmly within early 20th-century French poster art and Art Nouveau–to–Art Deco transition aesthetics, where advertising and illustration met in irresistible street-level spectacle.
For readers interested in Maurice Chevalier memorabilia, Charles Gesmar artworks, or vintage theatre and cabaret posters, this piece offers a compact lesson in how celebrity was sold in print. Even without extra scene-setting, the design’s confident typography and lively caricature communicate show-business energy, making it a striking example of 1917 graphic design and performance history preserved on paper.