The posters I grew up with were the wonderful psychedelic pop art posters of the 1960s and ’70s. They were possibly the first posters made for youth. On July 16, 1966, impresario Bill Graham went around San Francisco on his scooter pasting up Wes Wilson’s now famous ‘Flames’ poster announcing a concert on July 23. It had orange flame-shaped letters vibrating against a lime-green background. The posters slowly disappeared from the walls as people started collecting them. Aaron Skirboll writing in the Smithsonian Magazine says, what was an advertisement had become “a coveted work of art.”

Poster mania best describes what followed. Fluorescent colours, op art, pop art, all came together as a psychedelic explosion that characterised art, design and fashion of the time. Graham himself was instrumental in commissioning and marketing psychedelic concert posters by designers such as Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley, Wes Wilson, Victor Moscoso and Rick Griffin, who came to be known as the ‘San Francisco Five.’

Moscoso explained, “The musicians were turning up their amplifiers to the point where they were blowing out your eardrums. I did the equivalent with the eyeballs.” Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd were immortalised in fluorescence and zany photographs.

Across the Atlantic, Martin Sharp’s ‘Exploding Hendrix’ poster-style painting epitomised “Swinging London” — a youth-driven cultural revolution with Carnaby Street fashions, Twiggy and Shrimpton, the Rolling Stones, The Beatles and pirate radio stations. Every music fan, including us, had psychedelic posters on our walls. The use of hand-made lettering encouraged many to make their own posters.

The Bolsheviks adapted the war time posters for the 1917 Russian Revolution, where the language of constructivst art easily transferred to poster art.

The ’60s and ’70s were also the age of protest — civil rights, the Vietnam War, nuclear proliferation and the environment. Extensively used was the symbol for peace, originally designed for the British nuclear disarmament movement by Gerald Holtom in 1958.

Dan Shafer in his essay ‘Protest Papers’ writes, “Protest posters have always been a voice for individuals with views that were silenced by oppression. They are an anonymous voice that speaks to a great number of people.”

Poster Art, as we know it, emerged in the Belle Epoque of Paris (1871 to 1914) with the invention of lithography in 1798. Two years later, the French artist Cheret used three lithographic stones for an image which allowed full colour, and other artists started to experiment as well. The 1891 Toulouse Lautrec poster of Moulin Rouge was seen as an artwork rather than simply an advertisement for the new Paris dance hall. The fact that 3,000 copies were made, challenged the exclusivity of the art gallery paintings, making art accessible to people on the street. The posters of Cheret, Mucha, Toulouse Lautrec and Steinlin spread across Europe — each capital city reflecting its own imagery, from bullfights in Spain to trade fairs in Germany.

The crisp colours and use of negative space of Japanese Ukiyo-e-Style woodblock prints exhibited in 1890 at L’École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, introduced a sophisticated new aesthetic, bringing a sense of modernity to French, English and American artists.

Aubrey Beardsley in England developed his own elegant and dark style of black-and-white illustrations and posters. Ahead of his time, he wrote in an essay ‘The Art of the Hoarding’ that while the art gallery painting was to “perplex an artless public”, the poster was utilitarian as well as aesthetic and with “no gate money, no catalogue” escaping “the injustice of juries and the shuffling of dealers.” Poster Art continued through Art Deco into Modernism and Bauhaus, in turn influencing advertising graphics.

The powerfully designed posters produced during World War I, on both sides of the Atlantic, became central to the war effort — recruitment, raising funds, vilifying the enemy, raising feelings of patriotism, encouraging war production and volunteers. In the absence of radio and television, it became an effective weapon. They were propagandist and designed to inspire ordinary people. Alfred Leete’s 1914 recruitment poster announcing to Britons that Lord Kitchener “wants you” inspired the more famous 1917 “Uncle Sam Wants You” poster in the US. The aesthetic continued well into the ’40s, most notably with the London Transport posters commissioned by the visionary Frank Pick, and the message was revived in the recent “Keep Calm Carry On” campaign.

The Bolsheviks adapted the war time posters for the 1917 Russian Revolution, where the language of constructivst art easily transferred to poster art. Centred on the theme of agitation with strong diagonals and disruptive colours, they were meant to aggressively polarise the opposing Red Brigade revolutionaries and the White Imperial Army.

The posters of the Mao Revolution in China ignored the opposition, focusing instead on ‘The Great Leap Forward’ towards a prosperous future and liberation. Colourful reds and yellows dominate; smiling faces depict euphoric happiness rather than the anger and rage of the Bolshevik posters. This hyper-realism created its own pressures on the Chinese public, powerfully critiqued by the contemporary artist, Yue Minjun, whose portraits have anxious frozen laughter.

The revolutionary poster spread to other countries in transition. Its best example is the Che Guevara posters of Cuba and posters continue to be a major part of all protests.

Strangely enough, South Asia does not have a tradition of Poster Art despite cinema posters, religious posters of shrine and temple, and Kalighat satirical prints. The messages on decorated vehicles and T-shirts may be seen as a surreptitious form of poster art, while wall chalking may be posters without paper.

Posters are an effective way to communicate. Easy to design, print, and paste, they can reach a wide and varied audience. The advertising industry in Pakistan realises its effectiveness, but activists choose wall chalking and artists choose galleries.

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist and heads the department of visual studies at the University of Karachi

Published in Dawn, EOS, February 25th, 2018