Access the digital collection or visit in person

With the generous financial support of Irving K. Barber Learning Centre's "B.C. History Digitization Program," nearly 1,200 posters from the Perry Giguere 'Perry the Poster Man' collection have been digitized and put online with descriptive metadata.

You can also view the posters in person in Special Collections and Rare Books.

Collection history

From 1978 to 2018, Perry Giguere (aka 'Perry the Poster Man') made a living putting up promotional posters all over Vancouver, always holding on to an extra copy or two at the end of a job.  The result was a comprehensive archives of nearly 250,000 posters documenting cultural, social and political activities in Vancouver over the past four decades. Over the past several years, Special Collections and Rare Books acquired Giguere's collection, which now stands at approximately 35,000 posters. 

Giguere was born in Quebec City on December 16, 1950. After spending his early years in Montreal, he moved to Vancouver in 1973. While studying to be an actor at the Firehall Theatre in 1978, he was approached to put up promotional posters for the theatre and postering soon turned into a full-time, forty year career. Giguere passed away in Vancouver on June 17, 2018.

Highlights

Advertising events and causes from the grassroots level up to more established organizations and cultural groups, the posters range from rather crude DIY pieces to the smooth and glossy.  In addition to their informational value, many of the posters have value as artistic works, capturing the aesthetic trends of the time, and the work of Vancouver artists such as Joe Average and Jim Cummins.  Thanks to Giguere, these may be the only surviving copies of many of these ephemeral works, the rest being damaged by the elements or tossed in the waste bin or recycling once an event was over.

Spanning the whole of his career, the posters were organized into 50 categories and sub-categories by Giguere, including:

• Activism and protests
• Benefits and causes
• Dance
• Environmentalism
• Festivals
• First Nations / Indigenous
• Labour movement
• LGBTQ community
• Literary
• Music
• Politics
• Stage and theatre
• Venues no more