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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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Session:         Page of 592

Foner:

Images of Labor.

Q:

What did I say?

Foner:

Bread and Roses.

Q:

Images of Labor.

Foner:

Image of Labor stopped circulating shortly before Sweden.

Q:

Which was when?

Foner:

Sweden was 1984, so it must have gone through the end of 1983.

Q:

The fall of 1980 through the fall of 1983. Can you say off the top of your head how many different cities, actually?

Foner:

In the twenties -- I don't know the exact number. I can easily find out. That was a high point in art, Images. It was through Images that I had the idea for Disarming Images, the anti-nuclear exhibitions.

Q:

How come you never printed any of the artwork as posters?

Foner:

It cost like 3,000 dollars to print one of those posters. You could never make that money back in sales.

Q:

Really?

Foner:

If the endowment is paying for it, it's easy. But, you know, to sell 2,000 posters. See at the beginning we were selling them like crazy, because unions were buying -- “I want twenty,” “I want fifteen,” that kind of thing. Then you start one on each, by the each, it's a slow process. Probably the best selling poster that we put out, probably would be Lawrence 1912 -- because that went through several editions -- and some of the Images posters. “The Strike,” Milton Glaser, Paul Davis -- all of those, they sell fairly equally. “The Hard Hats,” which I picked as the theme -- which I think was a mistake. It's not strong enough. I thought in retrospect that the Milton Glaser thing should have been the theme. Because the Swedes, the Swedish International Affairs Department called me at one stage. Bengt So derberg called me from Sweden and said, “We are about to put out an international solidarity poster. We want to be able to use that, can we?” I said, “I'll call you back this afternoon.” I just called Milton, and said, “I'll send you the slides.” “Don't send me the slides! Someone is coming from the United States to Sweden today. He's leaving from the U.N.”

Q:

You were working full time on Bread and Roses at this point.





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