War Traffic Must Come First
Artist
Fred Chance
United States, 1883 - 1941
Date1943
Dimensions17 1/4 x 14 in. (43.8 x 35.6 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LineGift of Peter A. Blatz
Object numberPH.240
DescriptionThe government’s Office of Defense Transportation was responsible for organizing domestic transportation for military purposes during World War II, and in the poster here it encourages Americans to make its job easier by avoiding train travel. Fred Chance’s design features a close-up view of the train’s wheels barreling along the track from a perspective accentuated to suggest both the vehicle’s speed and the urgency of the message. Chance was an established illustrator by the time he began designing posters for federal agencies during the war, creating covers for popular magazines like Vogue and Fortune. His compositions, like this one, often focus on machines rather than figures; in contrast to the work of most of his American contemporaries at this time, they also incorporate some of the streamlined forms of European modernism.On View
Not on view
