EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 24 © 2018 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

39 Boris Grinsson The Russian-born artist who came to France and became one of the most prolific movie poster designers. Born in Pskov, Russia in 1907, Boris Grinsson became one of the most prolific movie poster designers in France, with over 2,000 posters produced between the years 1940-1970. His family had moved to Estonia after the Russian revolution of 1917. There Grinsson studied fine art at Tartu, and later moved to Berlin, where he followed his studies, and also worked as an extra at the UFA studios of Babelsberg. While working for UFA he started doing movie posters for MGM and Paramount films, in particular working on the poster for the James Whale film ‘Frankenstein’. During the German political campaigns of 1932 he drew a caricature of Hitler holding a scythe in the form of a swastika. In 1933, when the Nazis came to power, Grinsson had to flee the country because of the drawing he had done earlier. FACING PAGE: ‘ Les Quatre Cents Coups’ / ‘400 Blows’ (1959). François Truffaut’s first film was a poignant look at childhood and schooling. The image Grisson did was based on the last scene of the film. BELOW RIGHT: ‘ Les Oiseaux’ / ‘The Birds’ (1963). A four-sheet poster, this was one of the many variants Grisson did for the Alfred Hitchcock film. The image of Hitchcock behind the main image was also done by Grisson.