An "Open Skies for Peace" exhibition at the Taiwan Provincial Museum

A brown and yellow Chinese-language poster for an exhibition titled, in the archive's English, "Open Skies for Peace," sponsored by the United States Information Service at the provincial museum in Taipei's New Park, 1 to 20 December. Filed with U.S. Information Agency posters, catalog date 6 November 1957 (NAID 6949053).

Lines from an eye

The design does more than the words. The archive describes white lines fanning out from a circle, like a sight-line or an eye, over blocks of colour and rows of dots, in brown and yellow. A few short lines of type give the sponsor, the title, the place and the dates. The sheet says nothing else.

美國新聞處主辦

「為和平開放天空」展覽

新公園省立博物館

十二月一日至

十二月二十日

The archive's machine translation, labelled unverified, reads: "Sponsored by the United States Information Service. Exhibition 'Opening the Skies for Peace'. Provincial Museum, New Park. December 1 to December 20." Its catalog title uses the shorter form, "Open Skies for Peace."

The sponsor on the top line

In the archive's reading order, the first line of type names the United States Information Service as organiser, and FRAME classes the source as identified. The National Archives files the poster with the U.S. Information Agency and its State Department predecessor, in the series Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, catalog date 6 November 1957. The record lists the purpose as "Persuade or win support" and the themes as war and the military, and science and technology.

Peace in the title, the case left to the hall

FRAME's tag is glittering generalities, and its note is short: the word "peace" in the title carries the case, and the poster gives no argument. Whatever the exhibition argued, it argued inside the museum. The poster only invites.

The record's themes add a detail the words do not. FRAME files a short exhibition bill under war and the military. The poster itself names no weapon, no army and no rival. A reader in Taipei learned that an American office was holding a show about skies and peace, and that he could see it in December. He was also told who was behind it.

Another 1957 Taipei poster in these files advertises a Marian Anderson recital. Another exhibition in the agency's files, Atoms for Peace in Tehran, appears on a Farsi wall newspaper. The program is on the USIA posters abroad hub.