All Articles Tagged 'propaganda' (36)

This poster comes from the Netherlands:

Painters' trade union informs us that the hand holding a brush can also be a fist. Beware!..

Recently, yours truly and Stefan exchanged opinions on Interbellum art. Speaking of creativity and imagination, I mentioned…

Sorry, no cheese today. No chocolate. Only a selection of posters from the Swiss Confederation.

One may expect a lot of advertisements promoting banking and watch industry. Sorry - nothing like this in my collection. But there is a lot of automotive themes (like on the poster above, a work of Noël…

I'd like to present here, in graphic form, one of the Diesel Era most dramatic pages.

Civil War in Spain (July 17, 1936 - April 1, 1939) was by no means an internal conflict - both sides, loyalist Republicans and rebellious Nationalists, were supported by foreign powers, accusing each other of being "puppets" in the hands of, respectively, Soviet Union and…

Some propaganda today. Let us begin with a 1943 poster looking like a sci-fi magazine centerfold:

The artist is Pat Keely. By the way, the wartime propaganda and advertising in the US and Canada often borrowed themes from science fiction - to show "the future we are fighting for" (three examples can be seen…

Another set of WWII posters:

This time they come from the United States (preserved by Jackson Library, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro), and their target audience are women. Ladies eager to perform their patriotic duties with US Army WAC…

In 1924, a young artist was commissioned a label for Château Mouton Rothschild wine:

Baron Philippe de Rothschild, an extravagant Jazz Age playboy, thought not only of car races, beautiful actresses and night clubs. Exactly like the more conservative members of the family he was very keen on promoting his "discriminated" (i.e. exluded from Grand Cru status) Mouton;…

These fine examples of Hungarian poster art were quietly waiting for several weeks before being presented on Dieselpunks.

The reason is simple: in our community, pictures should tell a story. And Modiano posters printed in Hungary in 1932-1933 can tell a lot if someone cares to ask - or to research. Often erroneously attributed as "Italian", the posters promoted an…

Some more examples of Canadian war propaganda brought to us by Mr. Malon in his fabulous photostream:

(Anonymous illustrator)

We already ran two batches of Canadian war art - Posters and…

It was not easy to prepare this entry. Too many posters generate the problem of choice.

Which one to chose? What sequence to build? And what to tell?.. Well, I could tell you about the war itself but I believe you already know enough. I could make a witty post-modernist analysis of the similarities and differences between Soviet, Allies and Axis posters. Besides, I could point out which poster is actually a remake of some Civil War or even WWI propaganda. But let's…

For starters, another Lenin quote: "Revolution is worthy only when it can defend itself".

The instrument of defense (and not only defense) was Red Army, created in January 1918. Above is a 1930s poster, the slogan over French-style steel helmets says: "Red Army is a faithful guardian of October [Revolution] gains". Below, a kind of fairy tale printed to celebrate the second anniversary of the Army in 1920:…

Want an airship? Pay for it!

This poster urges the public to join OSOAVIAKHIM, Union of Societies of Assistance to Defence and Aviation-Chemical Construction, which prepared Red Army reserves and used its members' fees to fund new aircraft squadrons and airship flotillas. The poster above (1930) is far less convincing than "Have you enlisted?", a real masterpiece created by D. Moor ten years earlier, during the Civil War:…

Let's start from an educational film, Comrade Airship (1931):

This 1931 poster by Stenberg brothers (signed "2 Stenberg 2") looks like propaganda, and propaganda it is. No less eye-catching than a pure propaganda poster by GV Kibardin, also from 1931. Even the color palette is the same. Of course, there were much more "quiet" educationals telling about the porcelain manufacturing…

Weapons were needed in massive quantities with unerring reliability. Nations under the British Commonwealth, participants in the war against the Axis,like Australia, India and Canada were expected to produce their share of weapons for the fight. And with the Bren Gun, the premiere light machine-gun of the…

"Of all arts, cinema is the most important for us. " (V.I. Lenin)

There is some argument about the context of this famous phrase, but the cinema's importance for the Soviet propaganda and lifestyle is beyond doubt. Moving pictures were screened everywhere: mountains and desert, sleepy provincial towns and distant villages, in trains and in churches converted into cinema theaters.…

"The radio will be to the twentieth century what the press was to the nineteenth"

- Josef Goebbels, 1933.

The German Volksempfänger (People's Radio), VE 301 radio was Launched at the Tenth German Radio Fair in August 1933, the model number represented the day on which Hitler had taken power in January that year. Its Bakelite case was designed by Walter Maria Kersting…

The Flight over Vienna was an epic action performed by Italian poet and nationalist Gabriele D'Annunzio on 9 August 1918.

He was planning it as early as in 1917, but his dream to fly over the enemy capital together with his friends Maurizio Pagliano and Luigi Gori (see Poetic Bombers) shattered when their Ca.3 bomber was shot by Benno Fiala von Fernbrugg on…

Today, another set of 1930s posters and magazine covers from Japan:

The Advertising World magazine cover, September 1933



Brought to us by Pink Tentacle, these artifacts reflect the strength of Modernist tendencies in Japanese art.…

Some wartime propaganda in English and French:

1941-42. Artists: A.E. Cloutier and Eric Aldwinkle

Just like the previous set, these posters are brought to us by Paul Malon in his wonderful Flickr…

Geraldine Doyle, the woman who would be known to Americans everywhere as "Rosie the Riveter" passed away on Sunday, December 26th at the age of 86.

This icon of the WWII era female workforce and of female empowerment didn't even know how popular she was until she accidentally saw her picture in a magazine 40 years after her famous likeness was created.

The full story can be found on YahooNews at >…

A cover of Japanese Air Raid Defense guidebook, 1940:

In 1938, the Japanese Red Cross worked with government authorities to create a series of posters to teach the public about the new Anti-Aircraft Defense Law, which was enacted in seeming anticipation of air strikes following the outbreak of war in China (1937). Among other things, the new law required citizens to take protective measures against gas attacks and prepare for disinfection, evacuation and relief. For…