Darcy, Georges- Idees 2 - Portfolio of Art Deco Designs Color Pochoir Prints. Paris, A. Calavas/Librairie des Arts Decoratifs, n.d. (ca. 1928). Title page plus 12 pochoir colored plates of art deco design ideas, primarily for textiles and wallpapers, many inspired by nature. Folio, loose, as issued, in original board portfolio with paper title label on front cover. Portfolio of 12 French Art Deco pochoir printed fabric designs by Georges Darcy, (French, born 1883).. Colors are saturated, fresh, and pristine. There are 36 patterns overall with approximately 3 to 4 design motifs on each pochoir-coloured plate, some heightened with silver. Paper on board large format loose leaf folio with applied title reading Ides 2. Title page reads Ides – 2 de georges darcy douze plances. en vente a la librairie des arts decoratifs, 68 rue Lafayette, paris. Measures 16" x 12". In good overall condition with all 12 plates present. Title page has one vertical fold, plate # 1 has minor chipping along top edge and plate # 12 has some chipping along top edge and a small area top right corner measuring ” of missing paper, that does not interfere with the image or text.

From the University of Cincinnati Rare Book Collection website: The Art of the Pochoir Book. The effect is arresting: paging through the leaves of a pochoir-illustrated book, the reader is abruptly stopped by the extraordinary effects of lush, vibrant colors and bold geometric shapes. Bright oils and watercolors seem to come alive on the page in an almost three-dimensional experience. These volumes, with their focus on patterns and color interactions, use a stenciling technique to present decorative arts and the possibilities of book printing. In fact, pochoir is the French word for stenciling, a form of coloring pictures that dates to a thousand years ago in China. It was introduced to commercial publishing in France in the late 1800s, and there it had its most exquisite expression. The pochoir process would use from 20 to 250 different stencils applied to a black-and-white collotype print from a photograph. The collotypes are affixed to stencil sheets of metal or board, and the patches to be colored are cut out. Each color to be applied uses a separate pompon, or brush of coarse, shortly-cropped animal hair, to sponge or dab on the paint. Each stencil is done in turn until the image is finished, so it is essential to place the stencils exactly in position. Though pochoir illustration had its heyday in the 1920s, with Paris as its center of greatest artistic production, several places produced pochoir books during this decade, including London, Florence, New York, and the avant-garde publishers of Prague and other Eastern European cities. In the United States,pochoir gave way quite early to related methods like serigraphy and silk-screening. Occasionally today some fine press books are illustrated using the pochoir method, but its most sumptuous flowering eight decades ago represents a remarkable era in the history of the book.