WWII "Don't Scrap It" poster - image

[Jon]

Fullsize image: https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...3_fullsize.jpg

[Jon]

Fullsize image: https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...9_fullsize.jpg

[Jon]

Fullsize image: https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...5_fullsize.jpg

[Jon]

Fullsize image: https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...2_fullsize.jpg

[mklotz]

Interesting. The copyright is 1942 but the image looks, artistically, earlier. I wonder if GE recycled something from a WWI poster.

[Toolmaker51]

Indeed, interesting. The possibility of pre 1942 WWII artwork, is there. Most era posters have the artists name, this does not, and the majority are drawings.
Enlarged far as my laptop goes, quite sophisticated in detail, unsure it is drawn, photograph or colorized.
Either way, a very sophisticated artist, depicting a lovely young model.

[mklotz]

Indeed, interesting. The possibility of pre 1942 WWII artwork, is there. Most era posters have the artists name, this does not, and the majority are drawings.
Enlarged far as my laptop goes, quite sophisticated in detail, unsure it is drawn, photograph or colorized.
Either way, a very sophisticated artist, depicting a lovely young model.

The shadings are too soft and blended for a colorized photograph. My guess would be something done with artists' pastel chalks.

[Jon]

The highly expressive face, Norman Rockwell-like aesthetic, and emotionally charged patriotic wording is a hallmark of Sheldon-Claire posters, a now-defunct advertising firm hired by the US government to create these in WWII. Some more examples:


Fullsize image: https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...1_fullsize.jpg




Fullsize image: https://diqn32j8nouaz.cloudfront.net...2_fullsize.jpg

[mklotz]

More on Sheldon-Claire...

https://fdr.artifacts.archives.gov/p...928e80&idx=868

https://sova.si.edu/record/NMAH.AC.0768


The one of the weeping Frenchman is a colorization of a 1941 photograph showing French citizens watching the the French regimental flags being taken to Africa for safe keeping...


https://photos.com/featured/frenchma...-bettmann.html

so it's a good bet the others are colorizations of war era photos.

[Toolmaker51]

Colorization or pastels; either way it's astonishingly realistic artwork.