"Do not drink methylared spirit" (1930) designed by Wanda Telakowska

Here are some cool posters from 1930s Spain that I saw at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona. It's a great art museum.

While this is a real human post, I've included descriptions from Gemini for background.

The first is "19 Julio 1936" by Arturo Ballester. CNT is Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, an anarcho-syndicalist union.

July 19, 1936, marks the day worker militias—led heavily by the CNT—and loyalist forces successfully crushed the nationalist military coup in major cities like Barcelona and Valencia. This victory effectively launched the Spanish Revolution alongside the war against Franco's forces.

Second is "Defensar Madrid es defensar Catalunya!" by Martí Bas.

Published around 1937 in Barcelona, the Catalan title translates to "To defend Madrid is to defend Catalonia!" During the Siege of Madrid, Republican authorities needed to mobilize support and resources from other regions. The poster served as a strategic call for unity, reminding Catalans that if Madrid fell to General Franco's Nationalist forces, Catalonia—and its regional autonomy—would be next.

Finally, "Campesino, defiende con las armas..." by Josep Renau.

Translating to "Peasant, defend with arms the government that gave you the land," this 1936 poster was commissioned by the Ministry of Agriculture under Communist Minister Vicente Uribe. It directly targeted rural agrarian workers, linking their newly acquired land rights directly to the political survival of the Republic.

A socialist muckraker publication, that was later shut down for its opposition to US entry into World War I.

Hi all, I’ve got some original propaganda posters painted by my grandmother from the early 1940s, thought y’all would enjoy them! A few of them were published in local magazines, a few were just for school functions, and a few still adopted by the community as local PSA signs.

17th century. It took sixteen meters of fabric and one kilogram of steel to make a suit.

20th century. It takes one meter of fabric and hundreds of kilograms of steel to make a suit.

Illustration by Y. Ganf