Posters American Style

Web version of a traveling exhibition by the same name that brings together some of the great graphic images made in the United States over the past century.

Biographical entries on the artists, a concise guide to postermaking terms, a bibliography, and both subject and chronological indexes serve to make this volume an invaluable reference tool.

The "modern" American poster has figured prominently in virtually every major political, social, commercial, and cultural development in the country. With arresting images and text, these posters have informed and sold Americans on election campaigns, the nation's war efforts, protest movements, consumer products, travel, entertainment, etc. They also comprise a history of U.S. graphic design, reflecting dramatic changes in style, advertising theory, and printing, as well as the emergence of key graphic designers. The American Image provides a rare survey of this popular art, spanning more than one hundred years. Selected from the Resnick Collection, the book analyzes some 70 posters representative of every significant style and theme. They range from design masterpieces to works of historical value, from posters by renowned designers to those created anonymously, and from celebrated images to those never before published. This handsome book includes superb, full-color reproductions; an incisive essay on American poster design by R. Roger Remington; and a preface and authoritative commentary on each image by Mark Resnick. MARK RESNICK is currently Executive Vice-President, Business Affairs, for Twentieth Century Fox. He has assembled what is likely the foremost private collection of American posters spanning the 1890s to present. R. ROGER REMINGTON is the Massimo and Lella Vignelli Distinguished Professor in Design in the School of Design, Rochester Institute of Technology. He is the author of several books, the most recent of which is American Modernism: Graphic Design, 1920 to 1960.

This lavishly illustrated volume amasses nearly 500 of the best and most striking posters designed by artists working in the 1930s and early 1940s for the government-sponsored Works Progress Administration, or WPA. Posters for the People presents these works for what they truly are: highly accomplished and powerful examples of American art. All are iconic and eye-catching, some are humorous and educational, and many combine modern art trends with commercial techniques of advertising. More than 100 posters have never been published or catalogued in federal records; they are included here to ensure their place in the history of American art and graphic design. The story of these posters is a fascinating journey, capturing the complex objectives of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal reform program. Through their distinct imagery and clear and simple messages, the WPA posters provide a snapshot of an important era when the U.S. government employed hundreds of artists to create millions of posters promoting positive social ideals and programs and a uniquely American way of life. The resulting artworks now form a significant historical record. More than a mere conveyor of government information, they stand as timeless images of beauty and artistic accomplishment.

"The Green New Deal is the most exciting idea in American politics for decades––and as theses powerful posters make clear, it’s grabbed the attention not just of policy wonks but of artists who can translate these ideas into images that move us.”––Bill McKibben, bestselling author of Deep Economy Posters with a purpose. A clarion call for our time, the Green New Deal is a bold and far-reaching legislative plan to fight climate change, create millions of good-paying jobs, promote economic and racial equality, and so much more. In its ambition, it’s a vision that mirrors President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, which helped pull the country out of the Great Depression. And just as WPA artists mustered support for the New Deal with their work, here are 50 powerful posters to champion the Green New Deal. The posters are original, colorful, and visually striking, with text on the back that explains each issue and how the Green New Deal seeks to address it. Perforated pages make them easy to tear out and hang or use as signs at marches and demonstrations, because it’s not just a book to flip through. Climate change affects everything: the air we breath, the water we drink, the food we eat, the places we call home, and the people we love. And the time to act on it is now.

"For more than a century, Nashville's Hatch Show Print has produced show-posters for entertainers of all stripes, from country musicians to magicians, professional wrestlers to rock stars. Hatch Show Print: The History of a Great American Poster Shop is the fully illustrated tour of this iconic institution, offering a glimpse into the history of American entertainment through dynamic and distinctive posters from the 1800s to today." "In this day of new media dominance, the hand-carved, hand-set, hand-inked, and hand-cranked ethic and aesthetic of a Hatch Show Print poster is beyond compare. Complete with over 175 illustrations, including historical photographs and scores of beautiful posters, Hatch Show Print is a dazzling document of this legendary print shop." --Book Jacket.

The National Museum of American Art (NMAA) of the Smithsonian Institution provides "Posters American style," an online exhibit which accompanies a touring exhibit of the same name. The online exhibit features images of and information on posters made in the U.S. over the past century.

American Art Posters of 1980's by Bader Artist

In 1893 a poster advertising the April issue of Harper's Monthly Magazine appeared in newsstands and bookshops throughout the United States. The subject matter was unlike that of French posters of the period; this poster was modest and the style restrained. It was unlike other American posters because the product advertised was not so much commercial as it was intellectual. Despite this quiet beginning, the Harper's poster started a revolution in the history of American poster-making. The book and magazine publishers who commissioned the first posters of this type gave free rein to their artists, many of whom, like Edward Penfield, Will H. Bradley, Maxfield Parrish, and Ethel Reed, were well-known illustrators of the time. Most of them signed their posters, which sometimes included the name of the printer as well. In other words, from the beginning the creative personalities responsible for the artistic statements were acknowledged in the American art posters of the 1890s. Although the obvious purpose of these posters was to advertise magazines, books, and other products, they were from the very start designed to attract collectors. One poster collector wrote in 1896 that he owned about fifteen hundred American posters, although unfortunately he did not catalogue them and now many are lost to us. The first scholarly catalogue of the American 1890s art posters did not appear until 1972 in Germany. This present volume, which catalogues the holdings of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, including the impressive collection amassed by Leonard A. Lauder, is an important addition to the literature. Included here is information about nearly three hundred posters, each of which is illustrated, fifty-six in full color. David W. Kiehl, associate curator in the Museum's Department of Prints and Photographs and compiler of the catalogue, has contributed an essay about the phenomenon of the American art poster, biographies of each artist, and a bibliography. Nancy Finlay, assistant curator at The Houghton Library at Harvard University, is the author of an essay on American posters and the publishing trade of the 1890s, while Phillip Dennis Cate, director of The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, has written about French poster antecedents, including works by such artists as Toulouse-Lautrec, Ch�ret, and Steinlen. Leonard A. Lauder has contributed a brief introduction describing the evolution of his collection, and Philippe de Montebello, director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, has provided a foreword. (This title was originally published in 1987/88.)