Red(s), White, & Blue:
Selections from the Walter Utt Poster Collection

April 2016

At the time of his death in 1985, Walter Utt had an extensive collection of posters. The largest group were Soviet propaganda posters, purchased on his trips to Russia. These posters fell into two groups—the artistically impressive work of the early 1920s and the cruder wartime art of The Great Patriotic War of 1941 to 1945. In addition, he had several French posters on subjects ranging from World War I to contemporary politics.

His collection grew in a variety of ways, as students and other friends gave him posters that, they were sure, would provoke or amuse him. Thus the collection includes such unusual items as an Ayatollah Khomenei shooting target and Richard Nixon as a pothead (a part of this display.)

Former students may remember certain of the posters in this exhibit as one-time features of Dr. Utt’s office décor.

“Friends of Walter Utt” will also remember his love of cartoons from Punch, The New Yorker, and several satirical French publications. These showed up on his office door or festooning the pages of his inimitable examinations. This display includes a sampling of a very large collection, with particular emphasis on cartoons that play with history, including (with his revisions) recent Adventist history.

The art displayed in “Red(s), White, and Blue” has been in storage for three decades.