{"product_id":"ww1-poster-shafer-victory-liberty-loan-1919","title":"WW1 Poster 1919 | Shafer Victory Liberty Loan","description":"\u003cp\u003eA damaged German U-boat breaks the surface at a sharp angle, crewmen on the foredeck raising their arms in surrender. To the right, a US Navy destroyer occupies the middle ground, hull rendered in flat blocks of burnt orange and steel blue, twin funnels trailing dark smoke. In the far left, the blunt bow of a civilian ocean liner moves safely onward through the grey-green sea. The composition makes its argument plainly: the Navy held the line so that commerce could continue.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDesigned by Leon Alaric Shafer and published by the W.F. Powers Co. Litho of New York, this lithograph was produced in 1919 for the Victory Liberty Loan, the fifth and final bond drive run by the US Treasury. Printed by Niagara Litho Co. of Buffalo, New York, it appeared at the close of the Great War to consolidate short-term debt accumulated during four years of fighting. The poster is held in the collections of the Library of Congress, the Imperial War Museum (Art.IWM PST 0298), and the US Naval History and Heritage Command. Shafer worked from New Rochelle, New York, where his maritime and military illustrations appeared regularly in Scribner's, Harper's, and Collier's.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe design belongs to the tradition of American journalistic naval illustration rather than the flattened graphic poster style that would come to define inter-war commercial art. Shafer works in three-dimensional volume: the U-boat lists at a studied angle, the sea churns with white foam, the destroyer looms with convincing mass. The palette, orange against teal, olive green against cream, gives the scene an urgency that pure draftsmanship alone would not achieve. The lower text band, set in bold slab-serif caps, serves as both slogan and caption.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a well-documented WW1 home-front poster that sits at the intersection of American naval history and the Liberty Loan advertising campaign, one of the largest public-finance drives the United States had ever conducted. The five Liberty Loan campaigns raised more than twenty-one billion dollars combined.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vintage Poster Archives","offers":[{"title":"A4","offer_id":63809385234809,"sku":"VPA-13255-A4","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"A3","offer_id":63809385267577,"sku":"VPA-13255-A3","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"A2","offer_id":63809385300345,"sku":"VPA-13255-A2","price":34.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"50x70cm","offer_id":63809385333113,"sku":"VPA-13255-50x70cm","price":39.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"A1","offer_id":63809385365881,"sku":"VPA-13255-A1","price":44.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"70x100cm","offer_id":63809385398649,"sku":"VPA-13255-70x100cm","price":59.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"A0","offer_id":63809385431417,"sku":"VPA-13255-A0","price":69.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0994\/1139\/4937\/files\/Propaganda-Military-VictoryLibertyLoan-SeaLanes-Shafer-1919.jpg?v=1782033085","url":"https:\/\/vintageposterarchives.com\/products\/ww1-poster-shafer-victory-liberty-loan-1919","provider":"Vintage Poster Archives","version":"1.0","type":"link"}