posted on 17 Jan 2016

Posters For The People : Art of the WPA by Ennis Carter

This book celebrates the 75th anniversary of Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal Programme that was implimented in the late 1930s and early 1940s. This was a social reconstruction programme to pull the US economy out of the depression that had been bumping along in America for the best part of a decade. There are lots of books that have analysed this period of politcs and many of them have quite rightly talked about the preparedness of the adminstration to think of regeneration in new ways - many of which put people rather than finance at it's heart.

One of the more creative initiatives the New Deal developed is celebrated in this book. The WPA - Works Progress Adminstration - commissioned hundreds of artists to create countless posters that were, in effect, a key piece of propoganda. The messages were colourful and progressive and promoted a new view of what a healthy and vibrantly refreshed America should be like. As a political tool they can be compared to the role that poster art played in revolutionary Russia - but they are more varied  than mere social realism. One of the most striking things about these posters is the quality of the artistic vision and the aspects of everyday life that many of these examples display. These posters for the people do not compromise on quality and that is one of the most admirable aspects of this body of work - those creating the artwork clearly subscribed to the notion that the ordinary worker deserved beauty in their lives, a message which echoes the socialist demand not just for bread but for roses too.

This volume contains over 500 examples of the posters that were produced and more than 100 of them have never been seen before. My copy was published by Quirk Books in the USA and cost me a hefty £25 when it came out in 2008 and copies can still be had now for around the same price on the second-hand market.

Terry Potter

January 2016