Vintage Poster Archives
Let Em Have It 1943 | Bernard Perlin WW2 Poster
Let Em Have It 1943 | Bernard Perlin WW2 Poster
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A helmeted US infantryman rears back to hurl a grenade, his left arm punching outward with a second one gripped tight. Behind him: rolling blue-grey smoke and coils of barbed wire. The figure fills the frame at close range from a low angle, yellow sans-serif at the top reading LET 'EM HAVE IT, white block type at the bottom closing with BUY EXTRA BONDS.
Designed by Bernard Perlin (1918-2014) and issued by the United States Treasury in 1943, this poster was produced by the US Government Printing Office for the Fourth War Loan Drive, which ran from January 18 to February 15, 1944. Perlin brought the influence of his Magic Realism training to the commission, rendering the soldier with a painterly weight and urgency. The drive raised $16.7 billion against a $14 billion target, with nearly 70 million bonds sold. Perlin went on to serve as an artist correspondent for Life and Fortune magazines in combat zones across the South Pacific, Greece, and Asia.
Within the Treasury's wartime bond poster series, this composition stands out for its suppressed palette of khaki, smoke-blue, and cadmium yellow, and for the low-angle viewpoint that puts the viewer inside the action rather than observing it. The diagonal tension of the two outstretched arms gives the design a kinetic force unusual in bond-appeal graphics of the period.
Reproduced as a fine art archival print, restored from the 1943 US Government Printing Office source. The design is from 1943; the print is new.
