World War I Vintage Patriotic Posters from NYC Artists on View at Museum of City of NY

Timed with the 100th anniversary of America entering World War I, next Wednesday, April 5th, The Museum of the City of New York will launch the new exhibit Posters and Patriotism: Selling World War I in New York delving into the work of New York City’s artists and illustrators who were recruited into the war effort in the U.S. government’s Division of Pictorial Publicity. These folks created imagery now ingrained in America’s iconography, such as the I Want You for U.S. Army Poster by James Montgomery Flagg, that were distributed on posters, flyers, in magazines, and other forms of media.

The 60+ posters that will be displayed, many shown for the first time, come from the Museum of the City of New York’s World War I poster collection that was donated by the railroad executive and financier, John W. Campbell, most well-known today for his Gilded Age office in Grand Central Terminal, most previously as the bar the Campbell Apartment. The Museum has provided us a preview with twelve posters as a preview for the showcase to come.

The exhibit will go beyond a discussion of aesthetics however to examine themes relevant to today’s political climate including nationalism, fear of immigration, censorship and other issues that the museum shows have “emerged and reemerged in our national consciousness throughout American history, especially during times of crisis.”

Next, check out 10 Traces of WWI You Can Still Find in NYC.

Posters and Patriotism: Selling World War I in New York is sponsored by Robert Dinan Memorial Fund, Cultural Services of the French Embassy, Susan and Elihu Rose Foundation, the General Delegation of the Government of Flanders to the USA, Mark Resnick, and Joan Barenholtz.