"A handsome survey of a century of vivid images that rallied support for such mainstays of civilization as war, peace, movies, psychedelic rock bands, and Levy's rye bread."-Los Angeles Times
A successful poster has an unmistakable and immediate impact. Featured here are 120 posters by some of the most popular American artists and graphic designers of the period. Will Bradley, Ben Shahn, Robert Rauschenberg, Rupert Garca, Wes Wilson, Georgia O'Keeffe, Norman Rockwell, and the Guerilla Girls are represented, along with other, less-familiar artists.
141 illustrations in full color, 85/8 x 111/2"
As Elizabeth Broun, director of the National Museum of American Art (NMAA), states in the foreword, the power of posters is that "Image and text are distilled to their essence, readable at a glance and assimilable on the deepest levels." Visiting curator Heyman has pulled 121 of these from the NMAA's collections for an exhibit that will travel from Washington, DC, to West Palm Beach, Santa Barbara, and Oakland. To highlight the distinctive "American" flavor in these posters of the past century, Heyman has organized them together by category, such as "Patriots and Protesters" or "Sports." There is James Montgomery Flagg's famous image of Uncle Sam ("I want you for the U.S. Army") as well as an unknown artist's draft-resistance poster of Joan Baez and her two sisters ("Girls say yes to boys who say No"). There are examples of the very simple posters for Harper's Weekly, famous movie posters, psychedelic concert posters from the Sixties, and more recent environmental and AIDS posters. Aside from the lavish reproductions, there is a glossary, brief biographies of the makers, an extensive bibliography, and a chronological index. Highly recommended for all collections.?Joseph C. Hewgley, Nashville P.L., TN
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
