Meet the Artist: James Montgomery Flagg
Flagg created some of the most iconic propaganda posters of the World Wars I and II
I Want You for the U.S. Army ... (1917) by U.S. Army and Flagg, James Montgomery, 1877-1960Smithsonian's National Museum of American History
Perhaps the best known and most famous is this poster of Uncle Sam.
The Art Students League of New YorkSmithsonian's National Museum of American History
Flagg was born in New York in 1877. As a child he began to draw and sold his first drawing at the age of 12. Two years later he was contributing to Life Magazine and at fifteen was on the staff of the The Judge. Flagg studied at the Arts Students League in New York. When he was twenty, he spent a year working in London before moving on to France.
Arts Students League of New York
Google Maps, 2014
James Montgomery Flagg at the Harlow, McDonald GalleriesSmithsonian's National Museum of American History
Flagg was one of America's leading illustrators. His illustrations were in Photoplay, McClure's Magazine, Collier's Weekly, Ladies' Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, Saturday Evening Post, and Harper's Weekly.
Here Flagg makes a fifteen minute sketch of Wallace Morgan, President of the Society of Illustrators at the 30th Annual Exhibition of Illustrators at the Harlow, McDonald Galleries sponsored by the College Art Association.
1930
Smithsonian Archives of American Art
Tell That to the Marines!. U.S. Marines. (circa 1918) by Flagg, James Montgomery, 1877-1960 and U.S. Marines. (New York.)Smithsonian's National Museum of American History
And here Flagg portrayed a more appropriately bellicose character.
