?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
JAMES MONTGOMERY FLAGG TELL THAT TO THE MARINES! 1918. 39 x 29 3/8 inches. (99 x 75 cm.) Condition A-: repaired tears at edges and abrasions in image. Flagg often worked from live models to create his posters and for this image he worked on the steps of the New York Public Library (which "became the forum for publicity campaigns during World War One. A crowd would gather on the steps to watch the artists paint recruitment posters; entertainers came to perform on the steps; thousand dollar Liberty Bonds were sold in exchange for portrait drawings" Flagg p. 42). The expression "Tell that to the Marines" had originally been an insulting one, implying that the Marines would believe anything but Flagg's poster turned that around and made it into a veritable battle cry. The image of a man reading a chilling headline and instantly preparing to face off against an opponent is a visceral allegory of an angry America springing to the offensive to preserve what is right in the world. Flagg p. 82, Rawls p. 166, Theofiles 72, Borkan p. 35.
