THE MILITANT POSTER 1936 – 1985
Dagmar Finková, Sylva Petrov
Prague: International Organization of Journalists, 1986. First edition. Quarto. Printed wrappers. Text in English and introdutory essay in multiple languages. 143 pp. 224 color reproductions. Glossy wrappers lightly rubbed, but a nearly fine copy of this book.
9.5 x 11.5-inch softcover catalog with 143 pages and 224 color poster reproductions published “in honor of the 40th anniversary of victory over fascism in the Second World War . . . Catalogue of international exhibition of posters devoted to the wartime, national liberation and anti-war struggle of nations of the world.” A number of these posters appear to be pleas for intervention on the part of powerful, neutral countries like the United States.
Includes color reproductions of posters from Kathë Kollwitz, Jesus Lozano, John Heartfield, Roman Cieslewicz, Paul P. Piech, Paul Davis, David King, Gert Jacobsson, Manfred Bofinger, Grapus, Masuteru Aoba, Osamu Kataoka, and many, many others.
The posters presented here employ visual strategies associated with the avant-garde, such as photomontage and caricature, along with more traditional hand-rendered imagery. The photo-based works are particularly explicit in describing the devastation wrought by the war on citizens—including children; this reality was given universal, symbolic form in Picasso’s monumental Guernica, which was displayed at the Spanish Pavilion of the Paris World’s Fair of 1937.
The Spanish Civil War, which was fought in Spain and Catalonia from 1936 to 1939, was famously deemed a “dress rehearsal” for World War II by historian Claude Bowers. On one side were the left-leaning Republicans, comprising the Popular Front, the People's Army, the Government of Catalonia, prominent unions such as the Unión General de Trabajadores (U.G.T.; General Union of Workers) and the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (C.N.T.; National Confederation of Labor), and a variety of communist, socialist, and anarchist groups, supported in part by the Soviet Union. On the other side were the conservative Nationalists, led by General Francisco Franco and supported by fascist regimes in Italy and Nazi Germany. The Nationalists would prove victorious and establish a dictatorship that lasted until Franco's death in 1975. And that was just the beginning. [Merrill C. Berman Collection]