An Appeal to You, April 1915

£1,650

SKU: 5994

Lithograph

Parliamentary Recruiting Committee,(PRC # 88) printed by Roberts & Leete, London

39 x 25 ins. (102 x 63 cm.)

Size:
Height – 102cm
Width – 63cm

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DESCRIPTION

Provenance:
Private collection

Presentation:
_folio

An Appeal to You original Parliamentary Recruiting Committee poster No 88 printed by Roberts & Leete Ltd

Fifty-four million copies of some two hundred different posters were produced and distributed by the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee over the course of the war. Millions more were produced by other wartime (often private) organizations. As one Londoner observed in January 1915: ‚ÄúPosters appealing to recruits are to be seen on every hoarding, in most shop windows, in omnibuses, tramcars, and commercial vans. The great base of Nelson’s pillar is covered with them.‚Äù

War posters were intended to be ephemeral and never meant to be archival or historical documents ‚Äì as a result of this many are incredibly rare.. In the United Kingdom posters were distributed by professional agencies ‚Äì in America the job of Bill Posting was left to the Scouts (who proved less effective), for which reason more copies of American (undistributed) posters have survived.

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THE ARTIST

Alfred

Leete

1882 - 1933

Alfred Leete is best known as the artist who drew the image of a pointing Lord Kitchener which was used on the famous First World War recruiting poster, “Your country needs you”. The drawing initially appeared on the cover of London Opinion a weekly magazine. Leete’s first published cartoon appeared in the Daily Graphic when he was 16. He worked for Punch from 1905 until his death in 1933