Douglas England, active 1927Commissioned by Empire Marketing Board, 1926–1933Printed by Roberts and Leete Ltd, British
Title:
Say "Empire Please"
Date:
1927
Materials & Techniques:
Lithograph on medium, smooth, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 30 x 20 inches (76.2 x 50.8 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Lettered inside image, upper left: "Douglas England '27"; upper center: "SAY"; lower center: "'EMPIRE PLEASE | S.W.B. 12. Issued by the Empire Marketing Board. | Printed for H.M.Stationary Office by Roberts & Leete, LTD. London, S.E.I."
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Henry S. Hacker, Yale BA 1965
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B2013.32.24
Classification:
Posters
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
abstract art | geometric pattern
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
A Decade of Gifts and Acquisitions (Yale Center for British Art, 2017-06-01 - 2017-08-13)
Gallery Label:
Between 1926 and 1933 the newly formed Empire Marketing Board undertook a poster campaign to rebrand the British Empire and boost the imperial economy by encouraging Britons to buy imperial goods. Commercial artists were commissioned to make posters visualizing the empire and encouraging the consumption of goods made throughout Britain’s colonies. The resulting posters were distributed widely and posted in towns and cities across Britain, even to schools to inspire loyalty among the young, whom the Board feared were woefully ignorant of the empire and its supposed benefits. The Board sought to shift ideas of empire away from the old Edwardian ideas of glory and instead cast the empire as a force for good in the world, and sell the idea of Britain less as a great colonizing power and more as the benevolent “parent” nurturing and encouraging her colonies. The Board was abolished in 1933, shortly before the process of decolonization began in 1947, when India attained independence. Gallery label for A Decade of Gifts and Acquisitions (Yale Center for British Art, 2017-06-01 - 2017-08-13)