This poster, probably Jean Carlu’s most famous design, was intended to raise morale among the surviving members of the French Resistance, both in and outside France, at a key moment during World War II. At the time it was published in 1944, the Allies were closing in on the Axis powers in Europe. They had disembarked in Sicily in 1943, and in June 1944 had arrived in Normandy; meanwhile, the Russians were proving victorious in the East. The bold message, “Between the Hammer…and the Anvil!” is accompanied by an equally forceful image: a hammer, emblazoned with the Allied flags, smashes a German swastika on an anvil bearing the Cross of Lorraine in the colors of the French flag. This symbol was adopted by General de Gaulle to represent France Libre (The Free French Forces) and their resistance to Fascism after the German Occupation of France in May 1940. Carlu had been a key figure in the world of Art Deco graphic design before the war. This poster, however, was one of the many he later produced in America. He had lost an arm in a car accident as a young man and was exempt from combat duty; he thus decided to remain in America where his talent for poster design was exploited first by the U.S. government and later by any number of businesses. He did not return to France until 1953.