Students who hate their jobs should visit the Harn this summer.
A selection of work incentive posters from the 1920s went on exhibit Tuesday at the Harn Museum of Art on UF’s campus. “America at Work: Art and Propaganda in the Early 20th Century” features 30 vintage posters with catchy slogans that encourage people to be productive and happy in their work.
The posters, which are decorated in prototypical 1920s graphics and feature slogans like, “Be a Tight Wad! Own Something!” and “Long Winded Talkers Waste Time,” were designed to encourage morale, teamwork and pride in the workplace, said Dulce Román, the modern art curator at the Harn.
“Since the posters are related to the theme of work, we hope people will be interested because of the economic downturn,” Román said. “The posters sort of represent American values. I wanted to show that.”
The posters are owned by Ronald DeFilippo, who owns The Swamp Restaurant on University Avenue. DeFilippo, who is loaning the posters to the museum through Sept. 15, bought them more than 25 years ago at an antique shop in New York.
“I had them authenticated and restored because they were colorful,” DeFilippo said. “I like them because they were the beginning stages of advertising, and as a restaurateur I like having them cover the walls.”
Although they may have been commercially successful in the early 20th century, in today’s market the posters are worth quite a bit more than the lithograph paper they are printed on, DeFilippo said.
The posters were produced by Mather & Company from 1923 until 1929, when the stock market collapsed and put the company out of business, Román said.
