One hundred years of poster-making in America is celebrated in Posters American Style, a major exhibition of 86 compelling images by American graphic designers and artists, at the Oakland Museum of California June 26 - Aug. 29, 1999. The exhibition includes colorful circus and literary posters of the 1890s, government-sponsored posters from World Wars I and II, psychedelic rock concert posters of the 1960s, protest images of the 1970s and new designs of the 1990s.

J. Howard Miller, Westinghouse for War Production Coordinating Committee. We Can Do It! ca. 1942 National Archives, Washington DC.

The exhibition brings together some of the great graphic images made in the United States over the past century and offers an overview of graphic design in the U.S. since the late 1800s. To be selected for the exhibition, says guest curator Therese Thau Heyman, curator emeritus of prints and photography at the Oakland Museum of California, "The image had to be strong enough to carry the message, and it needed to be a message that could be readily understood today. We chose those posters that represent the most remarkable use of graphic art."

To recall the ways in which posters are usually seen, the installation design is evocative of a "Main Street," with a central corridor introducing exhibition highlights. In adjoining sections, posters are grouped according to four broad themes: "Designed to Sell," "American Events and Entertainment," "Advocacy and Advice," and "Patriots and Protestors."

Posters advertising literary publications are among the earliest examples included in "Designed to Sell." With the proliferation of new magazines -- spawned by rising literacy rates in the 19th century -- posters were designed to encourage more subscribers. Arthur Wesley Dow's elegant poster design promoting the journal Modern Art (1895), for example, appealed to the refined tastes of its audience. More recent works in this section, however, reveal a different advertising approach. William Taubin and Howard Zieff's "You Don't Have to Be Jewish to Love Levy's" (1967), promoting Levy's rye bread, features a Native American spokesperson. It's meant to surprise.

Throughout history, posters have been an important vehicle for the promotion of leisure activities. In "American Events and Entertainment," a wide range of interests -- movies, art exhibitions, sports -- is vibrantly featured. The circus and the 1960s psychedelic rock concerts have inspired particularly raucous poster designs. For example, in "Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows/Seals that Exhibit Intelligence" (1924), the loud imagery screams while key information -- date, time, name of event -- reads as subtext.

To recall the ways in which posters are usually seen, the installation design is evocative of a "Main Street," with a central corridor introducing exhibition highlights.

The use of posters as promotion was never more palpable than just before our entry into World War I, when some of the best-known American illustrators were recruited by the U.S. government to produce graphic designs promoting the war effort. The most famous in this genre, included in "Patriots and Protestors," is James Montgomery Flagg's "I Want You for U.S. Army" (1917). The poster was so effective that it was recycled 23 years later for use in World War II. In "Boycott Grapes: Support the United Farm Workers Union" (1973), Xavier Viramontes chooses an Aztec warrior, squeezing "blood" out of red and white grapes, to heighten awareness of working conditions endured by Mexican-American farmworkers.

California artists are strongly represented in the exhibition, from 1895 posters by Maynard Dixon and Florence Lundborg to recent work dealing with such social concerns as labor organizing (Ester Hernandez) and AIDS prevention (David Lance Goines). The Bay Area counterculture of the 1960s provided the impetus for a new genre of rock and psychedelic posters, represented in the exhibition by works by Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse, David Singer and Wes Wilson.

Doug Minkler. Get a Life Get a Bike.1993 Silkscreen Print.

The popular art of poster-making has its origins as a tool for advertising, promotion and advocacy. Advances in printing technology in the late 1800s allowed for production of large-format, full-color pictures in great quantities at low cost. In being attached to a specific event or cause, posters are intentionally ephemeral, and as a means of immediate, local communication, they are fundamentally democratic. Heyman writes, "... the most significant thread in our response to posters of all periods is a willingness to accept the disappearance of the distinction between high and low art."

A fully illustrated catalog with 141 color plates, co-published by the Museum of American Art and Harry N. Abrams Inc., accompanies the exhibition. An essay by Heyman discusses the elements of American poster style; biographical information about the artists and a concise guide to postermaking terms are also included. The catalog is available in softcover for $35 ($31.50 for museum members).

Visit Posters American Style, the original exhibition Website by the National Museum of American Art!