HIST 4350W: World War I (The Great War)

Database of 284 posters created by French artists to support the war effort during World War I. Organized by subject with detailed descriptions of each image. Includes thumbnail, zoom, bookmark, and print features.

The War to End All Wars did not begin as a popular cause. Americans were reluctant to get involved in what they viewed as Europe's war and reelected Woodrow Wilson on his promise to keep this nation out of it. When war became inevitable, public opinion had to be turned around. To do this, the government mobilized the talents of an incredible cadre of artists to create pictorial publicity for all aspects of the war effort - from recruiting to war relief to food and fuel conservation. Artists of the calibre of James Montgomery Flagg, Howard Chandler Christy, Charles Dana Gibson, J.C. Leyendecker and N.C. Wyeth produced an impressive -even magnificent - body of art, yet all but a handful of these posters have been almost totally forgotten.

A wide selection of the most eye-catching and iconic examples from the Imperial War Museum's internationally renowned poster collection. Published to accompany an exhibition at London's Imperial War Museum, this book features more than 250 superb full-color illustrations of hard-hitting propaganda and groundbreaking graphic art. It encompasses iconic images such as Alfred Leete's "Your Country Needs You" as well as additional material drawn from the world of advertising and documentary photographs of posters in situ. Through posters, the author examines the social, political, ethnic, and cultural aspirations of America, Britain, Ireland, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Russia, Austria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. Covering topics as diverse as advertising in World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, Germany and Occupied Europe in World War II, anti-nuclear campaigns, and Vietnam, the book is comprehensive and highly analytical, yet accessible. 300 illustrations, 250 in color.

'Nothing to touch the glory of the great cartoonists!...they teach the historians their trade' said the former Labor Party leader Michael Foot, a view also held by Winston Churchill. However, though many of the cartoons of international conflicts from the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars until the end of the Second World War have become iconic, very little is known about their creators. This book puts the record straight by assembling, for the first time in a single volume, brief biographies of 300 of the most significant international artists of the past two centuries who drew political cartoons and caricatures during wartime, not only in national newspapers and magazines but also in posters, prints and books. Artists from more than 30 countries - and working on both sides of the wars concerned - have been included, from Russia, Germany, Poland, Japan, Italy, Australia and Brazil to Czechoslovakia, Holland, Norway, Switzerland, France, the USA and Great Britain. Some of the names may be familiar - such as James Gillray, John Tenniel, Louis Raemaekers, David Low, Boris Efimov and Bill Mauldin - but many others appear here for the first time after decades of omission from histories of art and warfare. Conflicts covered include the Napoleonic Wars, Crimean War, Indian Mutiny, Opium Wars, Ashanti Wars, Zulu War, Afghan Wars, Wars in the Sudan, Boer War, Russian Revolution, Russo-Japanese War, Franco-Prussian War, First World War, Spanish Civil War and Second World War. Lavishly illustrated with more than 300 classic war cartoons in color and black-and-white, as well as portraits and self-portraits of the artists themselves, this essential source book also contains an introductory essay on the history of the political cartoonist in wartime.

Portrait of War tells the gripping true story of eight graphic artists recruited by the government and sent into combat to create a visual historical record of World War I. Featuring both their stunning illustrations and deep personal reflections, Portrait of War is a moving testament to the bravery of these artist-soldiers and the remarkable record of war they left behind.