Artwork inspired by older artwork

Dmitry Moor, Have You Volunteered?,
1920, poster reproduction.

James Montgomery Flagg, I Want You
for U.S. Army, 1917

Alfred Leete, Lord Kitchener Wants
You, 1914

A few weeks ago I visited an exhibition, Agitation and Propaganda Soviet Political Posters 1918-1929 at the Frye Art Museum. While there, I happened to hear one of their museum docent talk about a particular poster in the exhibition, Have You Volunteered? by the Russian artist Dmitry Moor. The poster she was discussing looked very similar to a poster most of us know… the I Want You for U.S. Army poster by the American artist, James Montgomery Flagg. The docent mentioned the similarity as well as the fact that Flagg was inspired by an earlier poster, Lord Kitchener Wants You by the English artist, Alfred Leete.

All of these posters have a great deal in common. Each of these posters were created using a national hero to inspire people to volunteer to serve their country in a time of war.
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Agitation and Propaganda Soviet Political Posters 1918-1929

Alexandar Samokhvalov, The Workers
and Lenin Were United in the Smoke of
Their Gunpowder, 1926, poster reproduction.

The Frye Art Museum’s newest exhibition, Agitation and Propaganda, features reproductions of posters created in Russia beginning in 1918, a year after the Tsarist autocracy was overthrown and the control of the government was seized by Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik party. These political propaganda posters were created to inspire and communicate political messages to the largely illiterate peasant population.

The 11 years of posters represented in this exhibition show the works of many well known and unknown Russian artists. Even though the Soviet state government commissioned these posters, some artists were afraid to sign their artwork during this time of political uncertainty.

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