?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800
GEE! I WISH I WERE A MAN I'D JOIN THE NAVY. 1918. 411/4x27 inches. Condition B+: minor tears and abrasions in margins; creases in image. A pretty sailor, the wind blowing her uniform, is staring longingly at her desired destiny. The image is a classic, sophisticated appeal for all the maritime branches of the service in which the implicit sexual innuendo is palpable and persuasive. Christy successfully used fetching women in most of his war posters, declaring "that his uniformed models represented the all American girl a soldier dreams of coming home to, wholesome, outdoorsy, alluring" (Meehan cat. 15). He must have hit a nerve, as these images succeeded in seducing many men into the service. Two separate versions of this poster exist, the other against a white background has a narrower focus, seeking recruits for just the Navy, with a more blatant challenge to the public's masculinity, "Be a Man and Do It!". Theofiles 46, Rawls p. 80, Weill 216, Borkan p. 24.
