Page 122 - Swann Galleries - Modernist Posters - Sale 2314 - May 13, 2013

LEO LIONNI (1910-1999)
143 ● KEEP ‘EM ROLLING! Group of 3
posters. 1941.
Each approximately 393/4 x293/4 inches, 101x751/2 cm.
U.S. Government Printing Office, [Washington,
D.C.]
Condition varies, generally B+. Paper.
Until the attack on Pearl Harbor, America’s
involvement in World War II consisted of a ramped
up industrial production of war material for the
embattled Allied nations. Congress passed the Lend-
Lease Act on March 11, 1941. Although not a
military act, it eliminated the possibility that America
would remain neutral during the conflict. These
exceptional, patriotic work incentive posters were
issued by the Office of Emergency Management
right on the cusp of America’s entry into the
Second World War. “Lionni [along with Herbert
Matter, Lester Beall and Milton Ackoff ] carried
photographic poster illustration to new heights of
inventiveness. [He was] able to bring the clean
asymmetry of Bauhaus design into everyday life in
this country long before Gropius and Mies Van der Rohe were given an opportunity to do so in architecture”
(Word & Image p. 62). “War preparedness required the quickest, largest buildup in history, triggering
numerous ‘production incentive’ posters . . . [These four posters] each used the same layout: the flag’s blue
field contained a photograph of home front workers, and the product of their labor was shown on the war front,
amidst red and white stripes serving as road, sky or sea lanes. With the war still an abstraction for most
Americans, these posters connected what happened ‘here’ and ‘over there’” (Resnick p. 68). Born in Holland,
Lionni grew up in Italy and he moved to Philadelphia in 1939, and found employment with the advertising
firm N.W. Ayer. By 1948 he had become Art Director for Fortune magazine (a position he held until 1960).
His advertising credits include work for Olivetti typewriters, Chrysler and Ford. Resnick 38, Word & Image
p. 90, Modern Poster 196, Enyclopedie de l’Affiche p. 355, Fotoplakate p. 31, 1000 Posters 325.
[2,500/3,500]