The poster artwork has Doves of Peace carrying the flag of the Viet Cong.

This is an original poster hand painted in gouache. Although, drawing on a long tradition of political propaganda posters from China, the USSR and back as far as 1930’s Germany, this Vietnamese poster employs a style and imagery drawn from more traditional Vietnamese paintings.

Posters were produced underground during the war at a time when artists and publishers would have had no access to printing presses and thus the only way to produce these posters was to hand paint them clandestinely, often on the back of other paintings or posters. Popular designs would be copied producing small batches of posters for fly-posting to embolden the local people in their fight against occupation.

As well as encouraging the people to win the war against the American occupiers, many of the posters from this era also promoted peace, supported education and encouraged advances in agriculture and industry.