A few years back, I came across a fantastic book entitled “Revolucion!” After looking at page after page of the beautiful Cuban poster art inside, I was hooked. Propaganda art has quickly become one of my favorite forms of art around. Between 1960 and 1980, the Cuban government recruited the most talented Cuban artists to create these propaganda posters in order to promote and educate it’s citizens on everything from national literacy to opposing international political enemies. The posters spread throughout Cuban cities and has helped to define Cuban politics through bright and vivid imagery. 

Below are a couple of gorgeous movie posters that I found through Home of the Cuban posters. Don’t you wish movie posters still looked like this? I know I would be begging the manager at my local movie theater to give me one… or five. 

One of my favorite modern propaganda artists is Shepard Fairey. His Obey campaign was really popular back when I was living in Los Angeles. I loved seeing his famous Andre the Giant posters and stickers posted all over the sides of buildings and billboards. More recently, you’ll probably recognize Fairey’s work from the “Hope” posters he created for the Obama Campaign.

You can certainly see how influential early propaganda art was to today’s artists. In celebration of Obama’s victory, Shepard Fairey has created a new Obama poster that will be available tomorrow right here through moveon.org. This limited edition print won’t be around long so I suggest you snatch one up quickly before they’re gone.

Posted on Friday, November 7th, 2008 at 1:54 pm / Category: LAMA News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.