Editors: Milton Glaser, Margaret Cogswell, Dore Ashton, Alan Gowans, John Garrigan
Preface: ‘In the last decade of the nineteenth century, America was swept by a “poster craze” of larger-than-life proportions. Posters created for commercial use by artists like Edward Penfield, Will Bradley, Louis J. Rhead and Maxfield Parrish were shown throughout the country and avidly collected. Dealers and special publications briefly flourished. The bright colors and bold forms which had appeared nearly half a century earlier in anonymous theatrical and circus posters were subtly refined by highly skilled lithographic printers who produced the designs of these gifted artists. Into this decade of poster popularity a theme of earnest conviction found its way. Louis Rhead, for instance, lectured on “the moral aspect of the poster” during the 1890s, and attempted to communicate his notions of the ethical function of the arts in society through his poster art. The popular art of the poster had its serious side even then – a side even more pronounced today.’