Mar 29, 2018 - Sale 2471

Sale 2471 - Lot 219

Price Realized: $ 2,600
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(HISTORY.) Two variations of the classic uplift poster "Onward." Each about 19 x 15 inches; various conditions. Np, 1903

Additional Details

The central image in both of these posters is a 1903 montage by W.L. Haskell featuring portraits of Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Booker T. Washington and smaller vignettes from each of their lives, along with Lady Liberty waving a scroll: "Truth and justice / Shall not fail / Work and wisdom / Shall prevail." The apparently earlier version includes text at the bottom: a paragraph on the Tuskegee Institute, followed by short biographies of each of the three men. The present example has moderate dampstaining and three small holes in the image area. The second version eliminates the caption text, but adds 5 more portraits above the original image: Paul Laurence Dunbar, W.E.B. Du Bois, the opera singer Sisseretta Jones ("Black Patti"), and two figures who are little known today, author Hightower T. Kealing and Washington's personal lawyer, Wilford H. Smith. The present example has only minor wear, and is laid down on foam board.