Léon Choubrac

Léon Choubrac (17 November 1847 – 5 April 1885), who sometimes signed his drawings with Hope, was a French poster designer and illustrator based in Paris.

With his younger brother Alfred Choubrac, Léon was trained as a classical artist with the painters Charles Doërr and Isidore Pils at the École des Beaux Arts. In 1884, the Paris city council started to rent out surfaces belonging to the municipality, paving the way for a rapid increase in the production and distribution of advertising posters. Posters with clear colours and dashing images appeared all over town during the vibrant spirit of the Belle Époque.

Léon and Alfred created the Ateliers Choubrac. As an illustrator, he sometimes collaborated with his brother in Gil Blas or the satirical weekly Le Courrier français, among others. Choubrac illustrated several works by Emile Zola. Although Leon died young at the age of 37 in 1885, his brother Alfred went on to produce an impressive number of posters for Parisian entertainers, theatres, businesses and various commercial products.

The poster collector Ernest Maindron, who wrote the first essay about the illustrated poster in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts in 1884, and later published the first book on the subject (Les Affiches Illustrees) in 1886, mentioned the Choubrac brothers, along with and Chéret, among the pioneers of the illustrated poster.

Selected works