Most of the posters were printed in Shanghai during the first three decades of the century, when it was known culturally as the “Paris of the East”. It was the time when Shanghai was the centre of Commerce and Culture; booming with wealth, a bourgeoisie with expensive foreign tastes, warlords, spies, gangsters, artists, mistresses, Rolls Royces, Jazz and concert halls. The whole wealth of China was concentrated in Shanghai. It was Shanghai at it’s most decadent - very sophisticated and very open to the West.