Larry Rivers, America Needs McGovern, Lt Ed Hand signed by BOTH Rivers and McGovern, 1972

Larry Rivers

America Needs McGovern, Lt Ed Hand signed by BOTH Rivers and McGovern, 1972

Color half-tone offset photolithograph on slick white wove paper

Pencil signed and numbered 26/100 by Larry Rivers; this work is also, exceptionally and uniquely, warmly inscribed and signed by George McGo

31 × 23 inches

Unframed

The present work is pencil signed and numbered 26/100 by Larry Rivers; it is also, exceptionally and uniquely, hand signed and inscribed by US presidential candidate George McGovern. A true collectors item
In 1972, Larry Rivers was one of the fine artists commissioned by the Democratic National Committee to create a limited edition print as a fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern. The present work, featuring a smiling portrait of George McGovern underneath a colorful map of the United States, along with a black and white caricature of Nixon, with an "X" over it - is one of them. Like many artists, Larry Rivers was fiercely opposed to the Vietnam War, so he supported the quixotic, but ultimately doomed Presidential candidacy of the ultra-liberal George McGovern. Indeed, despite Rivers best artistic efforts, Richard Nixon went on to win the election in a landslide and Senator McGovern suffered one of the greatest defeats in American history. But by August 1972, Richard Nixon would end up resigning the US Presidency in in disgrace. This is a scarce and historic print and McGovern's liberal, anti-war message resonates with Americans to this very day. Pencil signed and numbered by Larry Rivers. For those of us of a certain age who remember that presidential election, this poster is a bittersweet reminder of a dream lost.
Bibliography: George McGovern & the Democratic Insurgents: The Best Campaign and Political Posters of the Last Fifty Years (University of Nebraska Press), Hal Elliot Wert
Published by the Democratic National Committee