Aug 04, 2022 - Sale 2612

Sale 2612 - Lot 41

Price Realized: $ 975
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000

JOSEPH PENNELL (1857-1926)

THAT LIBERTY SHALL NOT PERISH FROM THE EARTH. 1918.


41x30 inches, 104x76 1/4 cm. Ketterlinus, Philadelphia.
Condition B+: repaired tears in margins, some affecting image; darkening and tape stains in margins; horizontal fold.

"Without question one of the most powerful posters of the entire war." (Theofiles p. 120). In dark shades of sepia a nightmare-scenario of New York City under attack by German forces, with the Statue of Liberty in ruins (think of the final scene in Planet of the Apes), the city in flames and a squadron of German bombers overhead. "The poster's unlikely depiction of an air and submarine attack on New York was designed to bring the war home to a public whose distance from the fighting seemed to necessitate this most forceful sales effort." (Paret p. 75). Several variations of this poster exist, both in size and color. Rawls p. 227, Paret 103, IWM I p. 47, American Style 61, Darracott 35, Theofiles 161, Keay p. 90, Borkan p. 109, Rickards 61.