Bruce Museum Morning Lecture: “America Calls: Mobilizing Artists During the Great War”

Robin Jaffee Frank, Ph.D., organizer of the exhibition World War I Beyond the Trenches (New-York Historical Society, May- September 2017) and former Chief Curator of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (2011-2016), will speak about the development of World War I propaganda posters and artists’ responses to “the war to end all wars.”

Advance registration required, as seating is limited: brucemuseum.org/site/events. Bruce Museum members free; non-members $10 (includes Museum admission). Museum galleries will be open for one hour following this lecture. Be sure to sign in to receive your member discount.

The Monday Morning lecture is in conjunction with the exhibition Patriotic Persuasion: American Posters of the First World War, which features a selection of works donated to the Bruce Museum by Beverly and John W. Watling III.

The United States involvement in World War I lasted only a brief twenty months, from April 1917 to November 1918, but the nation’s military and propaganda strategies were of enormous consequence.

Featuring numerous other posters that combine image and text in ingenious, surprising, and sometimes disturbing combination, Patriotic Persuasion marks the centennial of American participation in the First World War. It is organized by Kenneth E. Silver, Bruce Museum Adjunct Curator of Art, and Elizabeth Smith, Zvi Grunberg Resident Fellow at the Bruce Museum (2017-2018).