Designed by Herbert Bayer in the early 1940s, Grow it yourself was part of the Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) efforts to help promote the Victory Garden Program during WWII. With food sources stretched to their limits during wartime, citizens were encouraged to plant their own edible gardens wherever possible, not only to increase availability of produce but also to reap the health, recreational, and morale-boosting benefits of home gardening. It is estimated that by 1944, almost 20 million families were producing 40% of the vegetables in America with their victory gardens.
Today, we’ve once again turned to home gardening for both sustenance and solace in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. With food supply chains strained, essential workers stretched thin, and quarantine precautions in place, a new generation of victory gardens emerged. Bayer’s poster uses Bauhausian bold simplicity to show both the bounty and gratification that gardening can bring. And in a time of such uncertainty, even the slightest sense of control and accomplishment—in the form of the most petite potato—provides fuel to persevere.
Bayer was known for his Bauhausian approach to print and advertising, evident in Grow it yourself’s bold simplicity that emphasizes both the bounty of gardening (carrots! cabbage! onions! tomatoes! potatoes!) and the gratification it can bring—the stylized ribbon of soil, punchy color palette, and orderly lines are certainly visually satiating, as if to say “these veggies satisfy in more ways than one.” That sprinkler is a key inclusion, an illustrated reminder that this mini Eden is 100% man-made (you can do it yourself!). Bayer was also a total typography whiz, which you can see in the blocky, sans-serif, all-caps font that cleverly switches from blue to white so it pops appropriately. And this isn’t just a garden. It’s a “Farm Garden”—a source of abundance at any size ... Read more on the blog!
+ Limited-edition, exclusive to 20x200
+ Museum quality: archival inks, 100% cotton rag paper unless noted
+ Handcrafted custom-framing is available
Our quoted dimensions are for the size of paper containing the images, not the printed image itself. We do not alter the aspect ratio, nor do we crop or resize the artists’ originals. All of our prints have a minimum border of .5 inches to allow for framing.
Medium:
Museo Portfolio Rag
Edition Structure:
8"x10" | edition of 10
11"x14" | edition of 100
16"x20" | edition of 25
20"x24" | edition of 10
30"x40" | edition of 2
