Which picture would your father like to show his friends?

Australian A.I.F. First World War recruitment poster. The poster appeals to the viewer's sense of filial duty as an encouragement to join up. In the top left corner, set against a yellow background, is a depiction of an Australian Soldier in profile dressed in full military uniform carrying his rifle. In direct contrast a man in the lower right corner sits against a dark background in cricket whites, lounging in a deck chair. Surrounded by his sports equipment, he is enjoying a drink while he reads a book. The title text in white on a red background divides the images.

Cheap, easy to mass-produce and highly visible, Australian First World War propaganda posters were created at the commencement of the war by state recruiting committees together with volunteer organisations, such as the Win the War League. Later in the war posters were issued by the Federal government. This poster was released by the N.S.W. recruiting committee at the same time as another Weston poster, tilted 'Would you stand by while a bushfire raged?'

Harry John Weston (b.1874, Tasmania) was a cartoonist and commercial artist. He worked as a sailor, store-clerk and lithographer before taking up teaching in northern Tasmania. He then traveled to Victoria where he established his own business as a commercial artist in Melbourne. By 1903 he had established himself as a leading poster artist. He also worked in Sydney and had previously designed posters with Blamire Young and Lionel Lindsay around 1893. He was a member of the Prehistoric Order of the Cannibals Club 1893 and is best remembered for his old salts and waterfront characters and as a contributor to 'The Bulletin', where he worked as an illustrator in the Advertising Department. In 1924 he became a member of the world's first society of cartoonists, the Black and White Artists' Society, formed in Sydney. His poster style sought to convey 'something typically Australian- something that conveys some meaning to an Australian...[with ] a simple and broad treatment'.