Beall, Lester
[Boy and Girl on Fence]
1939
40" x 30"

The great Russian Constructivist designer El Lissitzky once defined the function of a poster. He said that "a poster should first seduce the eye and then address the intelligence." The poster "Boy and Girl on Fence," created by the pioneering American graphic designer Lester Beall, certainly meets these criteria for effectiveness. This poster symbolizes America's great hope and promise as we began to emerge from the great Depression of the 1930's. It was but one of an extended series of posters created for the U. S. Government's Rural Electrification Administration between 1937 and 1941. Visually the poster is simple with just the silhouetted photographic elements (taken by Beall), the color bands and the typography, yet the combination of these parts shows us Beall's great skill in integrating form and content. The boards of the fence in the photograph establish a pattern, which the red stripes echo above. Interestingly the negative spaces between the fence bars begin the pattern of blue stripes. Therefore, we have the happy, positive image of the children cast against the powerfully patriotic flag stripes. Of all the eighteen posters in the three series for the REA, the "Boy and Girl on Fence," to me, is the most powerful in its graphics, rich in its symbolism and timeless in its meaning.

R. Roger Remington
Professor
Graphic Design
College of Imaging Arts and Sciences

A sky of red and white and a field of pure blue provide the backdrop for two happy children leaning on a fence. The Rural Electrification Administration (1936) promised to bring electricity to those living in the sparsely populated, agrarian areas of the United States. The children depicted in the poster provide an image of robust health, often associated with fresh air and country living, belying the poverty and misery many poor children, living with their families as sharecroppers or tenants, endured. These children and families documented by James Agee and Walker Evans in their celebrated book Let us Now Praise Famous Men were not only living without electricity, but without adequate housing, clothing, food, or health care. Agee poetically describes what he sees, "I see you, encamped, imprisoned; each in your pitiably decorated little unowned ship of a home." Beall's image provides an optimistic contrast to what Walker and Agee portray. His poster bespeaks a hopeful future where electricity brings comfort and light to all American children allowing them to live the robust life of the children he portrays.

Pamela A. Viggiani
Assistant Professor
Social Work Department
College of Liberal Arts

Lester Beall, 1903-1969. He came from the heartland of America. A self-taught graphic designer, inspired by the new typography of the European avant-garde, Beall became one of America's great graphic design pioneers. The poster, part of a series designed for the Rural Electrification Administration, a federal agency whose purpose was bringing electricity to less populated areas of the United States, spoke to American growth and optimism. Flat planes of color, dynamic horizontal and vertical elements, patriotic theme and happy farm kids tell the viewer electricity will improve their lives and the lives of future generations. Beall, a farm kid himself, understood his audience.

Lisa Bodenstedt
Graduate Student, 1st year
Graphic Design
College of Imaging Arts and Sciences

Lester Beall's poster "Boy and Girl on Fence" helps communicate an important message to the American citizens of 1939. This poster was created during a time when FDR wanted to convince the American public that rural electrification would help our economy regain the strength it lost due to the depression. Through Beall's use of the American colors, he reminds citizens how their support of this movement will restore everyone's hope in the American dream. This message is further conveyed through the smiles of the boy and the girl included in this poster. This pose is indicative of the happiness and reward that will result from the support of rural electrification.

Rob Terry
Undergraduate, 4th year
Criminal Justice
College of Liberal Arts