FOUR MORE YEARS? FOUR MORE YEARS?

New York: Artists and Writers’ Protest, 1972
97 x 64cm, full colour offset poster displaying Ronald L. Haeberle’s iconic if shocking photograph of a group of dead Vietnamese piled up on the side of the road. The first version of this famous poster had the text: “Q. And Babies? A.. And Babies.” – a quote from an interview about the My Lai Massacre and was released by the Artists and Writers’ Protest (and in particular designed by art activists Irving Petlin, Jon Hendricks and Frazer Dougherty and meant to be in association with the NYC MOMA who pulled out once they saw the image through both fear of reprisals and some support for the war) to wide release as an anti-war poster. This second version of the poster however was released as part of the campaign against Richard Nixon (who let us not forget had deliberately prevented peace talks before his first term in office so that he could campaign against the war but escalated once in office) and his unofficial slogan “Four more years”. The first form of the poster was reportedly released in over 50,000 copies (although it is very hard to find now) but this version was printed in far fewer numbers. This example is in VG+ condition with just a bit of toning to the margin at bottom left. Despite the numbers printed this is a difficult item to find.