POSTER: LESTER BEALL (1903-1969) HEAT - COLD

LESTER BEALL (1903-1969) HEAT - COLD / RURAL ELECTRIFICATION ADMINISTRATION. 1937.
39 1/2x29 1/2 inches.
Condition B+ / A-: creases and wrinkles in margins and image. Silk screen. Paper. Framed.
In the 1930s, after a traditional education in Chicago, Lester Beall became interested in avant-garde typography and in the design elements of the Bauhaus. In 1937 he was the first American designer to have a one man show at the Museum of Modern Art, and in the same year was one of the first designers commissioned by the U.S. Government to help promote the Rural Electrification Administration. The posters he created in this first series for the R.E.A. (including Wash Day, Running Water, Radio, Farm Work and Light) pitched basic, modern amenities to the hinter-lands of America, where many such "luxuries" were virtually unknown. The R.E.A. existed not only to help rural America enter the modern age but also served to create jobs for a Depression-ravaged country. Elevating visual communication to an extremely efficient level, Beall''s style involves a technique close to the ideogram, employing basic, clear and direct images, free from any exterior influences that would lessen the pure message. At a time when the majority of the rural populace that this poster was intended to reach was illiterate, Beall''s simple silk-screen, in patriotic red, white and blue, amply conveys the message of heating homes through electricity with hardly any text at all. The powerful effect of having the wires running from pole to pole, diagonally across the image, ingeniously evokes the sense of vastness in the American heartland.