Yucatan via Mexicana de Aviacion, Affiliate of Pan American World Airways, ca. 1960. Dumbarton Oaks Archives Ephemera Collection (AR.EP.PS.0667).
The Dumbarton Oaks Archives Ephemera Project recently acquired seven travel posters. Printed after the Second World War, these posters were created to re-excite tourists to visit the gardens and estates of England, France, and Italy, or to experience the “mysterious, colorful, exotic” sites of Mexico, including the Mayan ruins of Chichén Itzá. Combining compelling imagery with bold text, these posters were an effective medium to inspire travelers to re-engage with the world, as well as to foster an interest in European landscape design and pre-Columbian civilizations.
These posters, which date to the end of what has been called the Golden Age of Posters (ca. 1920–1960), also chronicle a shift in poster design: from artists’ renderings to photographic imagery, which began to be predominant in poster design around 1960.
Serge Prout, Air France, Paris-Mexico Direct, ca. 1952. Dumbarton Oaks Archives Ephemera Collection (AR.EP.PS.0664).
National Railways of Mexico, Handy, Mysterious, Colorful, Exotic - Mexico!, ca. 1950. Dumbarton Oaks Archives Ephemera Collection (AR.EP.PS.0669).
Jean Picart Le Doux, France, Pays des Chateaux, ca. 1950. Dumbarton Oaks Archives Ephemera Collection (AR.EP.PS.0665).
Country Houses and Gardens in Britain, ca. 1952. Dumbarton Oaks Archives Ephemera Collection (AR.EP.PS.0668).
Rowland Hilder, Country Houses in Britain, ca. 1954. Dumbarton Oaks Archives Ephemera Collection (AR.EP.PS.0666).
Alitalia Airlines, Montalto Pavese: The Castle with its Italian Garden (16th century), 1963. Dumbarton Oaks Archives Ephemera Collection (AR.EP.PS.0563).