1919 Howard Chandler Christy "The Spirit of America"
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GUEST:
I've had it on my wall for about 33 years in Northern Vermont. I found it in my father's apartment after he had passed away and we were cleaning things out. We were just about to leave, and I heard this kind of clunk behind a door, and it was these posters that were wrapped in architectural tracing paper. My dad was an architect. This was one of them. I had a series of maybe five or six. This one was probably in the best shape, I framed it. Reminding me of my dad every day. He was a collector, which I found out about after he had passed away.
APPRAISER:
I've heard of things going bump in the night, but I've never heard of things going clunk behind the door!
GUEST:
It's exactly what happened, exactly what happened.
APPRAISER:
And if you're gonna clunk your way into a, a set of posters, that's great. Um, do you know anything about the poster? About the artist, about the, the message?
GUEST:
I... I know, um, about the propaganda posters. I was kind of fascinated with the Christy Girls, and she is one of the Christy Girls.
APPRAISER:
Howard Chandler Christy was basically the Andy Warhol of his time. And I say Andy Warhol because Christy was one of the most, if not the most, famous artist in America at the time. I mean, his work was everywhere, and he was as close to a rock star as you can imagine an artist could possibly be. He was universally known. He was apparently earning $1,000 a week in the years before the First World War doing his designs...
GUEST:
Hm.
APPRAISER:
...an unheard-of amount of money. And he was especially well known for his propaganda posters featuring these Christy Girls, sort of a, a spin-off of the Gibson Girls.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
Charles Dana Gibson and these beautiful women in their diaphanous gowns. To me, usually, propaganda is something that is used during a military move or during the war effort. This poster is actually after the First World War, it's dated 1919. More than just propaganda, it's nostalgic propaganda. This was when people were prouder of their country than they were of their sports team. This poster is raising awareness not for the war effort, but for the Red Cross. "The Spirit of America." Between 1914 and 1918, the Red Cross grew from several thousand members to tens of millions of members.
GUEST:
Hm.
APPRAISER:
Noble work helping in hospitals. They did help during the war effort. Most importantly, or most currently, it's interesting, during the 1918 flu epidemic, nurses in the Red Cross were instrumental doing whatever they could. Now, the thing about propaganda posters, and the thing about Christy's work, is that he was so popular, and his work was in such demand, that when they printed these posters, they probably printed hundreds of thousands.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
These posters were distributed all across America. Also, when you look at the auction records, you see they come up for sale fairly frequently. They're not that rare.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
So people don't like them because they are scarce. People like these because they're beautiful. In the grand scheme of things, it's not in great shape, right?
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
You have some staining on top, and it looks to me like not only is it water-stained, but at some point, someone might have put some tape on the back. And you have some sort of creases along the bottom. In this condition, at auction, I would estimate the poster between $600 and $900.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
I think that the highest it ever sold for was $1,100.
GUEST:
Okay. The value to me is, there's no number I can put on it. Your explanation of everything around it makes it that much more beautiful to me.
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