Rally the Home Front
World War II Propaganda Posters
March 12 - April 26, 2019
The Dr. M.T. Geoffrey Yeh Art Gallery is pleased to announce a new exhibition, Rally the Home Front: World War II Propaganda Posters, featuring approximately forty works from the St. John’s University Library’s Special Collections.
Curated by seven students in the M.A. Museum Administration and Public History programs—Hannah Digate, Eric Haviland, Jaime Karbowiak, Lalaine Mercado, Linda Miller, Kristina Nolan and Megan Payne—the exhibition showcases how posters circulated by American government agencies created a sense of shared purpose among civilians during World War II. Featuring illustrations by well-known artists Norman Rockwell and Robert Gwathmey, as well as lesser-known painters, graphic artists and illustrators, this multi-themed show examines artistic techniques and advertising strategies that were applied to communicate the urgency and importance of Americans’ home front contributions to the war effort.
The posters in Rally the Home Front: World War II Propaganda Posters have only been exhibited once since their use during World War II. Importantly, they are drawn from one of the most comprehensive collections of wartime propaganda in the country. Each of the show’s sections is curated by an
individual student and highlights poster subjects that include (1) buying war bonds (2) food rationing (3) avoiding careless talk (4) service as nurses (5) conservation of fuel and (6) planting victory gardens.These actions allowed men, women and children on the home front to have a direct impact on the
battlefield. Cumulatively, this selection from among the millions of posters produced and distributed by the U.S. government reveals how artists around the nation were employed to represent the war as a patriotic endeavor to preserve democratic ideals, as well as to enlist every citizen’s participation to
ensure victory.
Exhibition Curators: Hannah Digate, Eric Haviland, Jaime Karbowiak, Lalaine Mercado, Linda Miller, Kristina Nolan and Megan Payne.
This exhibition is curated by students in St. John's University's M.A. Museum Administration and Public History programs.
