Lester Beall & A New American Identity

Poster House, the first museum in the United States dedicated to the global history of posters, will open to the public their fall 2024 exhibitions, including Lester Beall & A New American Identity (September 26, 2024 – February 23, 2025). This marks the first time the entirety of Lester Beall’s famous “electrification series” will be on view in a single show. On the heels of the Depression and as part of the New Deal, Beall was commissioned by FDR’s administration to create posters promoting the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), which was bringing power to remote areas of the country. The exhibition features fifty-five pieces, eighteen of which were groundbreaking REA works Beall designed, helping cement his reputation as the pioneering modernist in American graphic design—s​ome say the only true American pre-war modernist.