Britain's Call to Arms

Sir Frank Brangwyn 1867 - 1956

Summary

Frank Brangwyn offered Britain's Call to Arms free of charge to the British Parliamentary Recruiting Committee (PRC) responsible for commissioning posters to encourage men to enlist in the armed forces. Frank Pick, the commercial manager of the Underground Electric Railways, refused to display the PRC posters in his stations due to their poor design. He commissioned Brangwyn instead. This design was considered too stark in its portrayal of death and destruction by the War Office who requested that the poster be withdrawn. However it attracted large numbers of recruits so the War Office relented. Brangwyn produced it for the second of two series of 6 lithographs to commemorate the war. Brangwyn was not an Official War Artist. Nevertheless he produced over eighty poster designs during the First World War.