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Gallery of Film Poster Art
featuring
the Mike Kaplan Collection

Located on the campus of California State University, Northridge, (in Manzanita Hall, the new Arts, Media, and Communication building designed by Robert A.M. Stern), this exhibition space is the only permanent university gallery in the United States devoted to the motion picture poster. It will be sustained, in its initial source of artistic materials, by the internationally acclaimed Mike Kaplan Collection of vintage film posters and movie art. Pieces from this collection have been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., the New York City Public Library, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The decades from 1910 through 1950 witnessed the ascendance and triumph of the big studio movie-making system. The filmic myths were created in California. During these years, Hollywood’s myth-making machinery rumbled merrily, and America went movie mad. The engine of the machine was the studios’ advertising and publicity departments, because, prior to television, posters were the primary method of movie advertising. Fueled by stiff competition for patrons’ hard-earned nickels, posters displayed exaggerated virtues and situations sometimes more interesting than the film itself. In promoting the films, the posters created spectacular and sensational myths on paper; these posters preserve small bits of California’s mythic history.

All poster exhibitions are supplemented by a substantial publication effort, which includes—in addition to generous wall text—detailed catalogues of reproductions, poster design notes, historical commentaries, and copious cultural cross-references. Conceived to be an essential component of the university experience, the CSUN Cinematheque Gallery is consciously designed to reinforce and enrich the academic curriculum of the Cinema and Television Arts Department.

About the Posters
The theme of the first exhibit is HOLLYWOOD WORLDWIDE. The exhibit includes 42 one sheets (the one sheet is the most familiar poster size - approximately 27" x 41"), 10 three sheets (the three sheet is a vertical poster, 44" x 81" - three times the height of the one sheet), 4 six sheets (81" x 81" - the size of two one sheets high and three one sheets across), and 6 oversized posters. Representative posters date from 1910 through 1965. American, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Argentinian, Belgian, and Scandanavian examples are featured.

The Mike Kaplan Collection
GALLERY OF FILM POSTER ART
The Cinema and Television Arts Exhibition

THE GALLERY OF FILM POSTER ART is the only permanent university gallery in the United States devoted to the art of the movie poster. It was realized by Dr. John Schultheiss, chair of the University’s Department of Cinema and Television Arts, who envisioned a museum like setting to display the art of the film poster––a largely unappreciated art form––as well as a complementary attraction adjoining The Alan and Elaine Armer Theater.

The Gallery is sustained by the loan of pieces from The Mike Kaplan Collection of international film posters, the premiere exhibit being HOLLYWOOD WORLDWIDE, an introduction to significant poster art from 11 countries. It represents the golden age of poster design, the 1920s to the 1950s, and centers on major figures of that era.

The criteria for the Kaplan Collection rest on design and illustration, rather than a film’s importance. While images of many famous movies are displayed, from Way Down East to Jezebel to Some Like It Hot, unique concepts from lesser films share equal prominence (Limehouse Blues, Jimmy the Gent, Fools for Scandal).

A producer (The Whales of August, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead), actor (The Player, Choose Me) and award-winning poster designer (A Clockwork Orange, Marlene, Welcome to L.A.), Kaplan, who curated the exhibit, feels, “the ideal movie poster is a microcosm of the movie itself, capturing with graphic inventiveness the feeling you have after leaving the cinema. It should be both a work of art and a souvenir of your movie experience.”

D.W. Kummel wrote in The Bibliographical Handbook of American Music:
“The motion picture poster was acquired and cherished for its vague but real cultural delight. The possession of items of beauty should be seen as serving to elevate the owner or the beholder. Historical collections reflect and foster owners who are thereby the more humane, more filled with delight, good taste, and understanding of human history, and thus more responsive to one’s citizenry and the democratic society that was part of the collective national vision.”

John Schultheiss: “What began as a throw-away advertisement with an expected life of only a couple of weeks, has become an art form in its own right.”

Selections from The Kaplan Collection have been exhibitied at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., The New York Public Library, and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences.