In celebration of May Day—at a moment when the essential role so many workers play in our community is at the forefront of our minds—we are re-posting a modified version of this blog by Virginia McBride originally published November 8, 2015. Formerly a 2014 Peter Krueger curatorial intern, then a Curatorial Assistant, and Cataoguer in Cooper Hewitt’s...

Aim—pull—release! This archer draws back his bowstring and prepares to shoot. Peering into the distance, he points his arrow off the poster’s printed page. But designer Richard Roland Holst leaves no doubt about his target: a bullseye hovers just above his head, bearing the Dutch words for “Livelihood.” In this poster promoting the Labor Board...

This poster for an exhibition about the history of political posters features a screenprinted image of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the Argentine revolutionary whose face became synonymous with leftist oppositional movements in the twentieth century. Variations of the poster were produced by directly spray-painting different messages and marks over Guevara’s portrait.   Ellen Lupton is Senior...

“The best political graphics today exist on the cusp of art and graphic design. The people responsible often see themselves as both artists and designers. The posters don’t look like they were done to express the views of a client, but rather to express the viewpoint of the creator. The work doesn’t exhibit the sort...

Art Chantry’s posters from the 1980s combine simple collage techniques with low-cost printing. Chantry often cut images out of magazines and catalogs, photocopying them to create high-contrast images that he could put together into arresting illustrations. Each poster uses mass media to comment on its own idioms.   According to designer Art Chantry, this poster...

In 1996, colleagues at the Museum of Modern Art recommended to a donor that Cooper Hewitt be offered an opportunity to review a collection of rare posters from the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). These had been gathered by journalist William Mangold, who worked for the new Republic in Spain during that war. Thirty posters representing...