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[Soldier giving direction to a family, amid chaos and destruction of war] Lithograph poster by Frank Brangwyn, 1914. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g11360

A Lithographic Stone’s Throw

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I love making connections within our collections here in the Prints & Photographs (P&P) Division. Recently, I made an unexpected connection between our poster holdings and an artifact located across the Atlantic in London. During a visit to the London Transport Museum’s Global Poster Gallery, retired Reference Specialist for Posters, Jan Grenci, and I spotted a very large connection indeed, in the form of a five-foot-wide original lithographic stone. Stones like this are used to print lithographs and, as the caption accompanying it noted, are rare to find intact, as they were often ground down when their purpose had been served, and then used again. But here the stone was, with the image drawn by artist Frank Brangwyn back in 1914 still perfectly legible.

Lithographic stone on display at London Transport Museum. Photo by Kristi Finefield, 2024.

The image was immediately familiar, as it is part of the Prints & Photographs Division’s collection of World War I posters. The P&P collection includes many other examples of Brangwyn’s work in support of the war effort. The poster seen below was printed directly from the stone featured above, over 100 years ago. The description of the same poster in the collections of the London Transport Museum provides the title: “Britain’s Call to Arms.”

[Soldier giving direction to a family, amid chaos and destruction of war] Lithograph poster by Frank Brangwyn, 1914. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g11360
The same image was cropped and used in a smaller poster, which is also part of our multi-national World War I Poster Collection:

War. To arms citizens of the empire!! Lithograph poster by Frank Brangwyn, 1915. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g11203

It was a special treat to see the original source of this powerful image on display, and to make a transatlantic connection I won’t soon forget!

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Comments (2)

  1. Wow! That is such a powerful connection on a powerful theme! Congrats on finding it!

  2. Thanks for sharing this great find. Sounds like a fun and informative trip!

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