Art of Skiing: Vintage Posters from the Golden Age of Winter Sport »

Jenny de Gex collects vintage posters and printed ephemera with a particular focus on early twentieth-century travel. She has contributed to numerous illustrated books.

This book is a must-have gift for anyone interested in skiing or in the art of the poster. Organized by country, it features the world's foremost winter sport by drawing on an unparalleled collection of 800 vintage posters and paintings. Amassed by Mason Beekley over a lifetime dedicated to the celebration of all things skiing, the collection is now housed at the Mammoth Ski Museum in California and open to the public. In the 1910s and 1920s, skiing became the "in" thing among the young and the fashionable, who made such glamorous resorts like St. Moritz, Chamonix, and Garmisch famous. Like car racing, skiing was one of the sports that defined the twentieth-century's notion of the modern. It combined fast-paced action with the need to appear in stylish, sporty yet appropriate attire. Since it took place away from everyday urban life in remote and breathtaking mountain locations, it also combined the romance of travel with the stylishness of après-ski social life and ski chalet rusticity. Even in the steamship era, skiing quickly jumped the Atlantic and spawned such now famous ski resorts such as Vermont's Stowe, Colorado's Aspen, and Canada's Banff and Whistler (all featured here in their pre-war glamour). The book is rounded out by chapters on the contemporary skiing scene and on skiing fashion.