Artwork of the Week: February 18
Originally created to commemorate the abolition of slavery, the Statue of Liberty (1886) has since become a catchall monument to immigration and democracy. During World War I, the Statue of Liberty was also used as a patriotic touchstone by the U.S. Treasury to market the sale of government bonds in what became known as Liberty Loan campaigns.
Bond sales enabled the U.S. government to fund wartime efforts while also offering citizens a valuable investment opportunity. “Before Sunset” appears under an American flag waving in the firmament, invoking a nationalistic sense of urgency and call to action. Eugenie De Land was a high school art teacher who became one of the few women artists to design for the Liberty Loan campaigns. For one of the campaigns, a significant number of these printed posters were distributed in France and American Red Cross locations during World War I.
This work is currently on view in Crossing the Divide: American Art from the Permanent Collection.
