Object Details
- Physical Description
- HAWAII CONTINENTAL. Multicolor print advertising service to Hawaii. Iconographic print of a brown-skinned man in orange and red swim trunks and a pink lei, surfing. In the background a volcano explodes with a swirl of warm colors referencing above a lush, green jungle. The sinuous black lines and bright solid colors are similar to psychadelic posters from the decade (1960's). Screen print.
- Summary
- Fly Now: The National Air and Space Museum Poster Collection
- Throughout their history, posters have been a significant means of mass communication, often with striking visual effect. Wendy Wick Reaves, the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery Curator of Prints and Drawings, comments that "sometimes a pictorial poster is a decorative masterpiece-something I can't walk by without a jolt of aesthetic pleasure. Another might strike me as extremely clever advertising … But collectively, these 'pictures of persuasion,' as we might call them, offer a wealth of art, history, design, and popular culture for us to understand. The poster is a familiar part of our world, and we intuitively understand its role as propaganda, promotion, announcement, or advertisement."
- Reaves' observations are especially relevant for the impressive array of aviation posters in the National Air and Space Museum's 1300+ artifact collection. Quite possibly the largest publicly-held collection of its kind in the United States, the National Air and Space Museum's posters focus primarily on advertising for aviation-related products and activities. Among other areas, the collection includes 19th-century ballooning exhibition posters, early 20th-century airplane exhibition and meet posters, and twentieth-century airline advertisements.
- The posters in the collection represent printing technologies that include original lithography, silkscreen, photolithography, and computer-generated imagery. The collection is significant both for its aesthetic value and because it is a unique representation of the cultural, commercial and military history of aviation. The collection represents an intense interest in flight, both public and private, during a significant period of its technological and social development.
- Data Source
- National Air and Space Museum
- Sponsor
- Continental Air Lines
- Date
- circa 1969
- Medium
- Poster, Advertising, Commercial Aviation
- Dimensions
- 2-D - Unframed (H x W): 101.6 × 63.5cm (3 ft. 4 in. × 2 ft. 1 in.)
- Type
- ART-Posters, Original Art Quality
