Posters American Style [Hardcover]

Therese Thau Heyman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1998

"A handsome survey of a century of vivid images that rallied support for such mainstays of civilization as war, peace, movies, psychedelic rock bands, and Levy's rye bread."-Los Angeles Times

A successful poster has an unmistakable and immediate impact. Featured here are 120 posters by some of the most popular American artists and graphic designers of the period. Will Bradley, Ben Shahn, Robert Rauschenberg, Rupert Garca, Wes Wilson, Georgia O'Keeffe, Norman Rockwell, and the Guerilla Girls are represented, along with other, less-familiar artists.

141 illustrations in full color, 85/8 x 111/2"

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

As Elizabeth Broun, director of the National Museum of American Art (NMAA), states in the foreword, the power of posters is that "Image and text are distilled to their essence, readable at a glance and assimilable on the deepest levels." Visiting curator Heyman has pulled 121 of these from the NMAA's collections for an exhibit that will travel from Washington, DC, to West Palm Beach, Santa Barbara, and Oakland. To highlight the distinctive "American" flavor in these posters of the past century, Heyman has organized them together by category, such as "Patriots and Protesters" or "Sports." There is James Montgomery Flagg's famous image of Uncle Sam ("I want you for the U.S. Army") as well as an unknown artist's draft-resistance poster of Joan Baez and her two sisters ("Girls say yes to boys who say No"). There are examples of the very simple posters for Harper's Weekly, famous movie posters, psychedelic concert posters from the Sixties, and more recent environmental and AIDS posters. Aside from the lavish reproductions, there is a glossary, brief biographies of the makers, an extensive bibliography, and a chronological index. Highly recommended for all collections.?Joseph C. Hewgley, Nashville P.L., TN
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 191 pages
• Publisher: Harry N Abrams; First Edition edition (March 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810937492
• ISBN-13: 978-0810937499
• Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,909,423 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Way Cool book., September 15, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Posters American Style (Hardcover)

This is a great book. It showcases posters and other visual messages from sports, government, counterculture and activist groups, and advertising from the late 1800's to the present. Some of the posters are very illuminating of the times in which they were created, and they show how our societal ideas have evolved (for better or worse) since. It is fascinating and enjoyable reading.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful and valuable., April 17, 2002

By 

Quickhappy "quickhappy" (Big city, big country) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Posters American Style (Abradale Books) (Hardcover)

An exquisite collection of mostly American posters. Most are from the last century, with a healthy sampling from WWI and WWII, as well as sampling of rock art, commercial posters, and sports posters. A great strenth of the book is the attention it devotes to the representations and self-representations of women and ethnic minorities. Some of the most powerful pieces in the book are the many protest posters from the 1960s and 1970s. The book offers minimal text to analyze the work; instead concentrating on high quality prints from an excellent and wide-ranging assortment of American posters. A valuable and beautiful fragment of history.