BEN SHAHN (1898-1969) OUR FRIEND. 1944. 29 3/4x39 3/4 inches, 75 1/2x100 1/4 cm. L.I.P. & B.A., New York. Condition A- / B+: restoration along vertical and horizontal folds and at edges. "This poster was used in the hotly contested 1944 campaign in support of Franklin D. Roosevelt's fourth term. Shahn presented Roosevelt as a warmly sympathetic man whose visage looms father-like above the crowd" (Prescott p. 128). The poster is infused with pro-Democratic symbolism, including "buttons for the AFL and the CIO, hat tickets for the Grand Lodge and the National Farm Bureau, a soldier's hat, the hands of black and white races . . . a child symbolizing the nation's future . . . [and the good omen of] the blue sky above" (ibid). According to Shahn's wife, the little boy was actually their son, Jonathan. Prescott 151, Encyclopedie de l'Affiche p. 367.
