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A print of L'eau chaude électrique, 1958, by Lefor-Openo.
The posters of postwar France rarely made plain its daunting economic challenges. Instead, advertising focused on producing bright, optimistic images that saturated streets with cute rather than with chaos. This trend was epitomized by a female design team known as Lefor-Openo (Marie-Claire Lefort and Marie-Francine Oppeneau), whose signature upbeat, cartoonish characters would become emblematic of French mid-century commercial and political advertising.
Established in 1946 during Charles de Gaulle’s interim government, Électricité de France (EDF) was the result of a postwar effort to consolidate and strengthen a fragmented electrical grid system. Of the hundreds of posters that supported these programs, Lefor-Openo’s were especially notable, setting the tone for the modern French family and the prescribed role women played within it. Rather than promoting specific brands, the posters produced by the EDF typically highlighted the joys of a generic electrical appliance in order to encourage citizens to purchase such items for their homes and take advantage of affordable electricity. Here, a mermaid with a tail composed of an electrical cord hugs her new water heater. The tagline reads “cheap electric hot water.”
Measures 17 x 11 inches. Ships rolled.
© Estates of Marie-Claire Lefort and Marie-Francine Oppeneau, All Rights Reserved.
