Share in The Victory

In this lithographic poster from 1918, the American painter and illustrator Haskell Coffin rendered an allegorical figure of winged Victory carrying a sword and palm branch. Filling the sheet, she exemplifies the American Renaissance ideals of beauty and classicism prevalent in art in the US at the end of the 19th century. A plea for buying war savings stamps and encouraging thrift, the poster urged viewers to “save for your country, save for yourself.” In Coffin’s words, he chose to render a “lyric” version of Victory, favoring “sweetness and tenderness” over the “vain and glorious” (The Elevator Constructor 16, no. 5, May 1919). Coffin preferred depicting young, attractive, and fashionable women as his main subjects, and these images often graced the covers of magazines, such as Leslie’s Illustrated, Photoplay, Redbook, and the Saturday Evening Post. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, he moved with his family to Washington, D.C., and trained there at the Corcoran School of Art and with the academic painter Jean-Paul Laurens in Paris at the Académie Julian.