All Poster Forum
Propaganda & War Posters => Propaganda - Latest Acquisitions => Topic started by: DekeThornton on August 18, 2018, 01:53:30 AM
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Hello poster friends! It's been quite a while since I've posted, though I've still been lurking.
Anyway, I finally scored one of my "unicorns" I had been keeping an eye out for several years.
"Mexico por la libertad", a 1942 Mexican WWII propaganda poster by the artist Jose Bribiesca.
A former forum member also posted one of these a couple years back. It wasn't for sale then (I asked). This is a different copy.
This isn't something I plan to put on the wall since the swastika is so prominent, but I do love the image of the Mexican eagle rending the Nazi flag:
(http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy73/DekeThornton/Propaganda/IMG_20180625_192924.jpg)
(http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy73/DekeThornton/Propaganda/IMG_20180625_192958.jpg)
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Another WWII propaganda poster.
This one was produced for the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_the_Coordinator_of_Inter-American_Affairs) to help keep Latin America on the side of the Allies.
The Museum of Modern Art in NY sponsored a poster contest, and this was the winning entry. Amazingly, I found this press release from 1942 on the MOMA website with all the details of the contest!
https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/press_archives/831/releases/MOMA_1942_0073_1942-10-19_421019-67.pdf (https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/press_archives/831/releases/MOMA_1942_0073_1942-10-19_421019-67.pdf)
(http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy73/DekeThornton/Propaganda/IMG_20180817_214125.jpg)
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And yet another published by the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_the_Coordinator_of_Inter-American_Affairs)
The artwork is by Walter Beach Humphrey, a member of the New Rochelle artist colony that also included Norman Rockwell.
Interestingly, I have not found any other reference to this poster on the internet. Which is strange, because I can't imagine why it would be rarer than any of the other posters distributed by the OCIAA/OIAA.
Anyway, it is in my opinion a kick-ass poster!
The title is "El sueño de los héroes; La obra de sus hijos", which translates to "The dream of the heroes; The work of their children."
It shows the great historical liberators of the Americas including:
- George Washington (USA)
- Simón Bolívar (Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama)
- Bernardo O'Higgins (Chile)
- José de San Martín (Argentina, Chile, Peru)
- José Martí (Cuba)
- José Gervasio Artigas (Uruguay)
- José Bonifácio de Andrada (Brazil)
- Francisco Morazán (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica)
- Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (Mexico)
- Toussaint L'Ouverture (Haiti)
(http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy73/DekeThornton/Propaganda/IMG_20180817_214306.jpg)
(http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy73/DekeThornton/Propaganda/IMG_20180817_214321.jpg)
(http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy73/DekeThornton/Propaganda/IMG_20180817_214337.jpg)
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And yet another published by the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_the_Coordinator_of_Inter-American_Affairs)
The artwork is by Walter Beach Humphrey, a member of the New Rochelle artist colony that also included Norman Rockwell.
Interestingly, I have not found any other reference to this poster on the internet. Which is strange, because I can't imagine why it would be rarer than any of the other posters distributed by the OCIAA/OIAA.
Anyway, it is in my opinion a kick-ass poster!
The title is "El sueño de los héroes; La obra de sus hijos", which translates to "The dream of the heroes; The work of their children."
It shows the great historical liberators of the Americas including:
- George Washington (USA)
- Simón Bolívar (Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama)
- Bernardo O'Higgins (Chile)
- José de San Martín (Argentina, Chile, Peru)
- José Martí (Cuba)
- José Gervasio Artigas (Uruguay)
- José Bonifácio de Andrada (Brazil)
- Francisco Morazán (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica)
- Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (Mexico)
- Toussaint L'Ouverture (Haiti)
(http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy73/DekeThornton/Propaganda/IMG_20180817_214306.jpg)
(http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy73/DekeThornton/Propaganda/IMG_20180817_214321.jpg)
(http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy73/DekeThornton/Propaganda/IMG_20180817_214337.jpg)
Hi Deke, It reminded me of many of the beautiful murals done for public buildings during the Great Depression here in the U.S. So, I looked up Humphrey and "mural" and it looks like your poster is from this mural: Patriotic Montage (1933-34) housed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Here's the link https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/patriotic-montage-10944
My best
Okie
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Hi Deke, It reminded me of many of the beautiful murals done for public buildings during the Great Depression here in the U.S. So, I looked up Humphrey and "mural" and it looks like your poster is from this mural: Patriotic Montage (1933-34) housed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Here's the link https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/patriotic-montage-10944
My best
Okie
Thanks for finding that, Okie! That is an important piece of the puzzle!
It is interesting that the Smithsonian gives a fairly wide ten-year range for the creation date of the painting ("ca. 1933-1943").
I am pretty sure the aircraft in the painting/poster is a B-24 Liberator (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_B-24_Liberator) which entered service in 1941.
So it seems almost certain the painting was created in the 1941-45 period.
I wonder if any alternate language poster versions were also published? Some of the OCIAA/OIAA posters were printed in Spanish only, but others also had variants in English and Portuguese.
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(http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy73/DekeThornton/Propaganda/IMG_20180817_214125.jpg)
Very nice Deke and congrats... Is it common? I ask because I had never seen this one before.
Wonder if the office of IA affairs a precursor to the OAS that we know today?
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Very nice Deke and congrats... Is it common? I ask because I had never seen this one before.
Wonder if the office of IA affairs a precursor to the OAS that we know today?
Thanks!
I doubt the OIAA posters are truly rare in an absolute sense -- and they don't sell for big bucks for the most part -- but they take effort to find. I would imagine the print runs were smaller than your run-of-the-mill US WWII propaganda posters produced for domestic consumption.
After I found that link to the press release for the poster contest on the MOMA website, I learned after clicking around that a catalog was produced for the exhibition of winning and honorable mention posters.
And sure enough, I found one of these original 1942 exhibition catalogs for sale for $20!
MOMA also reproduces the catalog online for your viewing pleasure.
https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_3115_300061976.pdf (https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_3115_300061976.pdf)
As far as I know besides the winning design, maybe only one of the other poster designs was published for wide distribution.
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Thanks for finding that, Okie! That is an important piece of the puzzle!
It is interesting that the Smithsonian gives a fairly wide ten-year range for the creation date of the painting ("ca. 1933-1943").
I am pretty sure the aircraft in the painting/poster is a B-24 Liberator (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_B-24_Liberator) which entered service in 1941.
So it seems almost certain the painting was created in the 1941-45 period.
I wonder if any alternate language poster versions were also published? Some of the OCIAA/OIAA posters were printed in Spanish only, but others also had variants in English and Portuguese.
I went ahead and sent a message to the Smithsonian American Art Museum with some of my details and speculation about the painting and poster. We'll see if anybody cares or if I came off like some strange obsessive person!
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Very nice Deke and congrats... Is it common? I ask because I had never seen this one before.
Wonder if the office of IA affairs a precursor to the OAS that we know today?
Well, it's been a fruitful month! I managed to snag the Portuguese version as well!
(http://i779.photobucket.com/albums/yy73/DekeThornton/Propaganda/unamos-nos.jpg)