PBA Galleries

Hand-stenciled color poster. 165x86 cm (65x33¾"), mounted on later linen backing.

Rare wartime Soviet propaganda poster, raising the specter of the mutually profitable relationship between Nazi Germany and neutral Switzerland, with bombs and planes gushing from the Swiss cow in place of milk. This is Okno Tass poster No. 1128, one of some 1250 different posters produced by Tass during the war with a team of about 125 artists and 83 poets. Only around 100 to 500 copies of each poster were produced. The hand stenciling to apply the colors resulted in a vivid pictorial appeal not available through mechanical means of reproduction. The artist of the present poster was P.P. Sokolov-Skalia, with rhymes by renowned poet V.I. Lebedev-Kumach.