Red Cross Roll Call

Framed view in simple black wood frame

Detail

This stirring post-World War I original oil painting by an American illustrator was created to promote the annual Red Cross Roll Call. Annually, the Red Cross would put out a year-end appeal urging Americans to support their work helping to "succor humanity" in times of crisis.  An angelically depicted nurse is shown holding the banner of the red cross, which reminds viewers of their work visiting the injured, helping the disabled, and providing assistance in times of famine, flood, war, and reconstruction.  After Armistice brought an end to the Great War, the Red Cross found that the humanitarian crisis in post-war Europe remained unrelenting, but that contributions to the organization diminished, and the annual Roll Call was instrumental in their work throughout the early 1920s. Other illustrators that contributed art for Red Cross posters of the period include Haskell Coffin, W.T. Benda, Edwin Howland Blashfield, Howard Chandler Christy and Harrison Fisher.

Verso view of old canvas on original pine stretchers

Detail