Art: Children’s War

In the first year of World War II, England’s children saved pennies, lent their Government between ten and 15 million pounds. At the war’s beginning there were 23,650 Schools Savings Groups, carried over from World War I. By last week, in spite of evacuation difficulties, there were nearly 30,000, representing 93% of England’s schools. To promote further saving, a children’s poster contest was held, which brought in 1,200 designs by youngsters aged 5 to 18. Of 420 put on show in London, some were so good that professional artists slipped in, took notes.

Hitler was a favorite subject; 36 pictures of him made up a “Hitler Corner.” Sylvia Asprey, 12, showed Hitler on a clothesline, captioned “Save To Bring Him Down a Peg” (see cut). James Morris, 13, made a good caricature of the Reichsführer being hit on the head by a bag labeled £, with the caption: “Make Sure You Pound Adolf.” H. Rotstein, 13, used businesslike symbolism: a £shaped snake around a swastika, captioned “It Strangles Your Enemy.” Most publicized poster was 13-year-old Mary Saunders’—a woman digging in her sleeping husband’s trousers, with the slogan “Dig For Victory.” Ronald Sharp, 13, who filled his poster with planes, ships, soldiers, drew a Churchill-like man with finger pointed at the onlooker—reminiscent of a 1914 Kitchener poster, “Your Country Needs You.”

Britain’s fussy education authorities, reluctant to permit the contest at all, drew the line at prizes, allowed only Awards of Merit. Said the publicity adviser of the campaign: “Five-or ten-shilling prizes would have made a tremendous difference to the 60 successful kids. But there are more corpses in the Civil Service than on any battlefield.”