Vintage Poster Archives
Are You Playing Square 1944 | Dean Cornwell WW2 Poster
Are You Playing Square 1944 | Dean Cornwell WW2 Poster
Couldn't load pickup availability
A US Army infantryman in a steel M1 helmet occupies the upper two-thirds of the composition, his clasped hands at chest height, his gaze level and unyielding. Above him, the question ARE YOU PLAYING SQUARE? is lettered in cadmium yellow, YOU significantly larger than the surrounding words, an emphasis that functions like a raised voice. Below, a dark-green 1941-era American automobile has pulled up to a red petrol pump, its GAS globe catching the warm ground light. The attendant stands ready. The soldier watches from above.
Dean Cornwell produced this poster for the US Office of War Information in July 1944, commissioned by the Office of Price Administration as part of the wartime gasoline rationing compliance campaign. Cornwell, who had served as president of the Society of Illustrators from 1922 to 1926 and was nicknamed the 'Dean of Illustrators' by his peers, brought the same oil-painting authority he applied to magazine fiction illustration and public murals to this home-front brief. The combination of a hyper-realistic soldier portrait and the quietly accusatory headline made the poster one of the period's more psychologically precise rationing appeals. US Government Printing Office Poster 302-843, July 1944.
As a work produced by the US federal government, this design is in the public domain. Vintage Poster Archives has digitally restored the design from archival source materials. Each print is produced on 200gsm Enhanced Matte Fine Art Paper using pigment-based inks.
A natural fit for anyone interested in wartime illustration, American commercial art of the 1940s, or the graphic language of the home-front compliance campaign.
