Put Strength in the Final Blow. Buy War Bonds
Poster
1918 (published)
1918 (published)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Frank Brangwyn was born in Belgium and he identified closely with its fate in the First World War. His design for a recruitment poster was initially rejected by the War Office as too explicitly horrific, but it drew huge numbers of recruits and was reprieved. (He was later commissioned by the US Government to design a recruiting poster when America entered the war in 1917.) The design for Put Strength in the Final Blow . . ., commissioned toward the end of the conflict by the National War Savings Committee, invited the viewer's contribution to the fight by placing him in the position of the British soldier, and thereby expressed very powerfully how the money from War Bonds could assist toward the final victory. Such was the impact of the poster that the German emperor, Wilhelm II, is said to have a put a price on Brangwyn's head.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Put Strength in the Final Blow. Buy War Bonds (assigned by artist) |
| Materials and techniques | colour lithograph on paper |
| Brief description | 'Put Strength In The Final Blow. Buy War Bonds'; Poster issued during the First World War; Showing a soldier bayoneting another; Colour lithograph; Design by Sir Frank Brangwyn; Great Britain; 1918. |
| Physical description | 'Put Strength In The Final Blow. Buy War Bonds'; Poster issued during the First World War; Portrait format lithograph printed in red, dark blue and black.Above the caption a soldier, back to viewer, bayonets another, the latter falling backwards to the left of the image, behind them a low horizon and a battlefield. A variant figure of the British soldier wielding his bayonet appears in another of Brangwyn’s posters, see E.2318-1918. |
| Dimensions |
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| Production type | Mass produced |
| Marks and inscriptions | Auto-lithograph by Frank Brangwyn ARA (Maker's identification; lithography) |
| Credit line | Given by the Underground Electric Railways Co. of London Ltd. |
| Object history | The poster was commissioned by the National War Savings Committee, UK. The image is very close to that of the two figures in a further War Bonds poster, an impression of which is in the Collection of Prints & Drawings: E.2318-1918 |
| Production | Reason For Production: Commission |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Summary | Frank Brangwyn was born in Belgium and he identified closely with its fate in the First World War. His design for a recruitment poster was initially rejected by the War Office as too explicitly horrific, but it drew huge numbers of recruits and was reprieved. (He was later commissioned by the US Government to design a recruiting poster when America entered the war in 1917.) The design for Put Strength in the Final Blow . . ., commissioned toward the end of the conflict by the National War Savings Committee, invited the viewer's contribution to the fight by placing him in the position of the British soldier, and thereby expressed very powerfully how the money from War Bonds could assist toward the final victory. Such was the impact of the poster that the German emperor, Wilhelm II, is said to have a put a price on Brangwyn's head. |
| Associated objects |
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| Bibliographic reference | Summary Catalogue of British Posters to 1988 in the Victoria & Albert Museum in the Department of Design, Prints & Drawing. Emmett Publishing, 1990. 129 p. ISBN: 1 869934 12 1 |
| Other number | 5/G4 - V&A microfiche |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | E.2319-1918 |
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| Record created | February 26, 2003 |
| Record URL |
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