Antifascism (2 results)

Poster. Condition: Good. A suite of three WWII posters, 20" x 14". Each poster has been mounted to a thin cardboard. With some creasing, and occasional small losses from the edges. The largest loss is from the top right corner of the "palabra" poster, measuring 4" x 3". The posters also have a general layer of light glue-staining. Three American WWII posters depicting the themes of Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom of Speech. These posters were meant to highlight Franklin D. Roosevelt's four freedoms (here three), and to sway Latin American opinion against Germany, Italy, and Japan. The Spanish text at the foot of each poster reads: "One of the 4 liberties for which the allies fight." Edward McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954) was an American artist and graphic designer who worked mostly in the realm of poster art. He was born in Montana, however he moved to England and became an expatriate. He was very influential in Europe, however he was only known in the United States by a handful of those well versed in the study of design. Interestingly, despite his obscurity in America, in 1937 the Museum of Modern Art gave him a prestigious one-man show. At the time of the exhibition, copy agents were continuing the tradition of using posters with romantic imagery, and only a few designers were able to gain any attention from breaking free of this type of imagery. Still remaining in obscurity, Kauffer returned to England, only returning to New York City after the war broke out in 1940. He only received honors in the United States posthumously, when he finally received an AIGA award. Russian born American artist Alexey Brodovitch (1898-1971) was most known for holding the art director's position at Harper's Bazaar fashion magazine during the years of 1934-1958. Like Kauffer, Brodovitch played a significant role in introducing the United States to a substantially simplified modern design, already popular in Europe. While at Harper's, Brodovitch used art created by Man Ray, Salvador Dali, and A.M. Cassandre. Brodovitch received an AIGA award in 1987. Three boldly modern posters created by two artists who helped pioneer the modern poster in the United States, with its symbolic imagery and social relevance.

The complete run of the antifascist periodical The Lantern, association copy, inscribed on the front free endpaper by a member of the editorial board, "For Norman Di Giovanni. Aldino Felicani. August 9, 1963". Di Giovanni was close friends with Felicani and catalogued his Sacco-Vanzetti materials, which are now held at the Boston Public Library. Aldino Felicani (1891-1967) fled Italy to America in 1914 upon facing prison for political charges. Trained as a printer and based in Boston, he worked on a variety of other radical newspapers during his lifetime, including La Notizia (The News) and L'Agitazione (The Agitation). He was a fierce public defender of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, anarchists who were controversially executed in 1927 despite worldwide protests; Felicani founded the Sacco-Vanzetti defence Committee in an attempt to argue for their innocence, and, following their execution, he frequently used The Lantern to highlight the injustice of the case. Many suspected Sacco and Vanzetti innocent of the charge of murder, and that racist and anti-anarchist biases played a role in their trials. These arguments formed the basis of numerous legal reinvestigations as well as reimaginations in popular culture. Shining a light on the political evils of the late 1920s, The Lantern was first issued with the appeal: "In publishing this, our first, issue of The Lantern, we want to manifest our sympathy toward the multitudes of Italian exiles throughout the world, to the thousands of families suffering from the barbarity of Fascist dictatorship, and to numberless dead, victims of Mussolini's ignorance and greed. To them we pledge our word to continue to expose the truth about Fascism". The recipient Norman Thomas di Giovanni (1933-2017) is perhaps most well known as the translator of Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, whom he met during Borges's lectureship at Harvard in late 1967, resulting in a lengthy friendship. Di Giovanni translated several of Borges's works, who insisted that di Giovanni be awarded an equal share of the royalties. Loosely inserted in this copy is a reader's note on six articles found in The Lantern. Quarto (292 x 212 mm). Contemporary red buckram, flat spine lettered in gilt. With the original yellow, orange, and green illustrated wrappers of the three vol. II issues bound in (vol. I was issued without them). Spine sunned and marked, light spotting to edges, pastedowns, and occasionally to margins, otherwise internally bright and clean. A very good copy.