LARGE VINTAGE WORLD WAR II POSTER BY BEN SHAHN

SHAHN, Ben. [Poster] “This is Nazi brutality.” Poster No. 11. Washington: Division of Public Inquiries, Office of War Information, 1942. Original large full-color photolithographic poster, measuring 28 by 40 inches. $1100.

Vintage World War II government-issued poster designed to elicit the horror of mass murder.

This chilling image depicts a man with a cloth sack covering his head, chained at the wrists to a brick wall, prepared for execution. The text is in the form of a telegram: “All men of Lidice have been shot.” Ben Shahn has been labeled a “social realist,” who in his own words, “found that I must paint those things that were meaningful to me—that I could honestly paint in the shapes and colors I felt belonged to them. What shall I paint? Stories.” The story of Nazi brutality contributed to America’s decision to enter the war.

A work of art in fine condition.