George Barbier (1882-1932) was one of the great French illustrators of the early 20th century. Born in Nantes in 1882, Barbier attended the studio of Jean-Paul Laurens at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1908 to 1910. He  began his career as a costume and set designer for the Ballet Russes and later created sets and costumes for music-halls, movies and the Folies Bergere through Max Weldy Studios.  Barbier was renowned for his fashion illustrations for the leading magazines of the time, including the Gazette du Bon Ton and Vogue. His artistic style is recognized by a characteristically elegant, stylized line. 

About Pochoir:

Pochoir is the French word for stencil.  In the 1920s and 30s Art Deco era, the color  application process of the stencil was rejuvenated by the French, bringing color illustration processes for books and prints to new glorious heights.  This interest in exploring the stencil process came in reaction to the proliferation of machine printing and the poor quality of color reproductions in publishing.  With pochoir printing, the hand application of layers of pigment created dazzling effects that the camera or printing press could never replicate.  Earlier stencil works were quite primitive, but new experimental techniques in pochoir refined the process using multiple layers of color applications for a single print.