Poster House was incorporated in 2015 and opened to the public on June 20, 2019.[4][5] Its logo was designed by Paula Scher of Pentagram.[6] The museum space, which formerly housed an Apple products repair store by the name of Tekserve, was redesigned by LTL Architects and Lumen Architecture.[7][8]
When Poster House opened in 2019, its permanent collection contained approximately 7,000 posters from 100 different countries.[6] This included 3,000 pieces related to the 2017 Women's March as well as 98 Subway Series posters.[6][9] The Subway Series donation was made by the School of Visual Arts. It includes works by Milton Glaser, Louise Fili, and Paula Scher.[9]
The museum's collection contains works ranging from the late 1800s through present day.[4] The contemporary works are contained in a living archive that Poster House adds to on a regular basis.[10][11] The museum draws from both its historic and contemporary collections to stage exhibitions focused on a particular artist, movement, or theme.[10]
Poster House's first exhibition, in June 2019, featured more than 80 posters by the Czech graphic designer Alphonse Mucha.[5] A February 2020 exhibition called The Swiss Grid examined influential Swiss design and typographic style.[12]
In April 2021, Poster House held an exhibition featuring the work of Julius Klinger.[13] In September 2021, the museum opened You Can't Bleed Me, which displayed posters and marketing materials from notable Blaxploitation films such as Slaughter and Coffy.[14] That same month, it opened an exhibition containing over 200 posters from the New York-based design and illustration firm Push Pin Studios.[15]
In March 2022, Poster House opened Ethel Reed: I Am My Own Person, a show featuring poster and magazine cover illustrations Reed designed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[16][17]
Black Power to Black People, an exhibition featuring the history, art, and branding of the Black Panther Party, began in March 2023.[18] That month also marked the opening of Made in Japan, which focused on World War II and Post-War Era Japanese poster art.[19] Other 2023 exhibitions included Art Deco: Commercializing the Avant-Garde, a 53-piece show examining the use of Art Deco in mid-century advertisements, and We Tried To Warn You!, which featured environmental movement posters and advertisements from the 1970s through the 2000s.[20][21]
In April 2020, Poster House and Print collaborated on a public safety campaign called #CombatCOVID. The campaign employed graphic designers including Jessica Hische, Maira Kalman, and Edel Rodriguez, who created a series of posters communicating public safety guidelines and encouraging sentiment to New York City residents.[22][23] These posters were displayed on approximately 1,700 digital advertising spaces across the five boroughs.[23]
Poster House also partnered with food writer and historian Grace Young to create Coronavirus: Chinatown Stories, a video series in which Young documented the difficulties small businesses in Manhattan's Chinatown were experiencing during the pandemic.[24][25] Young received the 2022 Julia Child Award, in part due to her work on the series.[26] The award was presented to her by Poster House's Julia Knight.[27]