PROTEST POSTER ART
Posters and placards have been part of social movements since at least the 18th century. In the 20th century new methods of production expanded the range and style of traditional posters (pasted onto walls, fences, telephone poles, and all manner of other public sites, or to be held by hand at rallies), and in the 21st the digital world has expanded the production and distribution to include not only digitally made posters for traditional uses, but also what might be called poster-memes to fly through cyberspaces.
Featured Sites:
Center for the Study of Political Graphics. A major resource archive with over 50,000 posters and other political graphics, on- and off-line exhibits, books, links, and a vast amount of information about the history of protest art.
T.V. Reed's essay, Peace Signs: Comparing Anti-War Posters From the Vietnam War and the Gulf Wars, offers some historical perspective on the protest poster form.
Related Form, T-shirt Art: One form of protest poster appears not on a sign or wall but on the human body. T-shirts have long been a space for protest signs that one can carry about in daily life. "A History of the T-Shirt in Protest, Politics and Activism" tells some of this story over decades from the end of the Second World War to the present.
Sites for the Creation, Preservation and/or Exhibition of Protest Posters
Another Poster for Peace Archive of contemporary anti-war posters.
Center for the Study of Political Graphics. A major resource archive with over 50,000 posters and other political graphics, on- and off-line exhibits, books, links, and a vast amount of information.
Decade of Protests: Political Posters from the United States, Cuba, and Viet Nam, 1965–1975. Includes a historical essay and a fascinating collection of images from the Sixties Project.
Design Action Collective In addition to posters, this group helps design website for progressive organizations.
Inkworks Press Archive Selections from forty years of work by one of the great poster/graphic arts producers. A major force in progressive politics in and beyond the San Francisco Bay Area.
Protest Posters. Pinterest sites with many striking posters curated by Lead Feather.
Power to the Poster! Large archive of downloadable protest posters on a range of topics.
Powers of Persuasion: Poster Art from World War II. Useful historical archive of images from the National Archives.
WAR: Campaign on Iraq Poster Exhibition
Books About Social Movement Posters
Atelier Populaire. Posters from the Revolution, Paris, May 1968, Texts and Posters. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969.
Blum, Paul von. The Art of Social Conscience. New York: Universe Books, 1976. Nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
——. The Critical Vision. A History of Social and Political Art in the U.S. Boston: South End Press, 1982.
Commune de Paris 1871–1971. Exposition du Centenaire. Saint Denis, Musé d'Art et d'Histoire, 1971.
Craven, David. Art and Revolution in Latin America, 1910-1990. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002.
Crimp, Douglas, ed. AIDS Demo-Graphics. Seattle: Bay Press, 1990. Collection of ACT UP's brilliant posters, placards and other visual aids..
Cushing, Lincoln. Revolución! Cuban Poster Art. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2003. Many OSPAAAL posters.
---. Visions of Peace and Justice, Vol 1: San Francisco Bay Area Posters 1974-2007. Oakland: Inkworks Press, 2007.
Nishi, Nobu. Visions of Peace and Justice, Vol. 2: Political Posters 2008-2015, Oakland: Inkworks Press,, 2016.
Jacobs, Karrie, and Steven Heller. Angry Graphics: Protest Posters of the Reagan/Bush Era. Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books, 1992.
Kunzle, David. Posters of Protest: The Posters of Political Satire in the U.S., 1966–1970. Santa Barbara: University of California, 1971.
---. Murals of Revolutionary Nicaragua, 1979–1992. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Includes reproductions of many posters.
McQuiston, Liz. Graphic Agitation:. Social and Political Graphics since the Sixties. London: Phaidon, 1993.
---. Protest! A History of Social and Political Protest Graphics. Princeton NJ: Princeton U Press, 2019.
Philippe, Robert. Political Graphics, Art as a Weapon. Oxford: Phaidon; New York: Abbeville Press, 1982.
Princeton Architectural Press, Posters for Change: Tear, Paste, Protest. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Architectural Press, 2018. Fifty recent social justice posters that can be torn out and posted.
Rickards, Maurice. Posters of Protest and Revolution. Bath, U.K.: Adams and Dart, 1970.
Shikes, Ralph E. The Indignant Eye: The Artist as Social Critic in Prints and Drawings from the Fifteenth Century to Picasso. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969.
Stermer, Dugald, and Susan Sontag. The Art of Revolution: 96 Posters from Cuba. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970.
Stevenson, Prudence, et al. See Red Women's Workshop: Feminist Posters 1974–1990. Four Corners Books, 2017.
Thomas, C. David, ed. As Seen by Both Sides: American and Vietnamese Artists Look at the War. Boston: Indochina Arts Project, William Joiner Foundation, 1991.
Track 16 Gallery/Center for the Study of Political Graphics. Decade of Protest, Political Posters from the United States, Vietnam, Cuba 1965–1975. Santa Monica, Calif.: Smart Art Press, 1996.
Wright, Micah. You Back the Attack! We'll Bomb Who We Want! Remixed War Propaganda Posters. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003.
Yanker, Gary. Prop Art: Over 1000 Contemporary Political Posters. New York: Darien House, 1972. Mix of radical, historic, and straight election posters.
Young, Ralph. Make Art Not War: Political Protest Posters from the Twentieth Century. New York: NYU Press, 2016.