Mar 01, 2012 - Sale 2271

Sale 2271 - Lot 420

Price Realized: $ 20,400
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000
NO OTHER COPY KNOWN (MILITARY--WWII.) MILLER, DORIE. MARTIN, DAVID STONE. Above and Beyond the Call of Duty. Poster, 28-1/16 x 20-1/4 inches (71.2 x 54.4 cm); faint creases where folded, several very small repairs professionally conserved and backed with archival paper, excellent condition. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943
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Additional Details

a rare wwii poster by David Stone Martin, one of several inspirational posters aimed at the black community. Martin (1913-1992) studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. He is best remembered for the over 400 record jackets he designed for Folkways and other labels. His work is hung at the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum and the Smithsonian. At the outbreak of World War II, the armed services continued its long held practice of rigid discrimination against African-Americans. This practice included not only a stubborn reluctance to acknowledge the capabilities of the African-American soldier or sailor, but also a shameful denial of their courage and bravery. When Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7th, 1941, navy mess-man Doris "Dorie" Miller was serving on the USS West Virginia when she was struck. Before abandoning ship with the rest of the crew, Miller braved enemy fire to carry a wounded officer to safety, and though not trained for combat, he took up one of the ship's anti-aircraft guns, possibly downing at least one enemy plane. "It wasn't hard. I just pulled the trigger and she worked fine. I had watched the others with these guns. I guess I fired her for about fifteen minutes. I think I got one of those Jap planes. They were diving pretty close to us." He eventually received a Navy Cross (May 27, 1942) but only after intense pressure from the black press back home. Miller, later a mess-man on the USS Liscombe Bay was killed when the aircraft carrier was sunk in the Pacific in November of 1943. we have been unable to locate a single other example of this poster.