Abstract Activism: Sam Maitin's Philadelphia

Despite unsupportive teachers and his father’s wishes for him to pursue a more “intellectually trying” career, Sam Maitin became an artist. He graduated from the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art in 1948 and then earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania three years later. In 1959, he held his first solo art show at the Print Club, now the Print Center, a non-profit gallery dedicated to promoting the art of printmaking.

During these years, he fell in love with printmaking. In 1949, he won first place in a poster contest for the Philadelphia Flower Show. Maitin recalled this experience as the moment that he awoke to the possibilities of poster art as a means of communication: “The very idea of a poster, which to me meant an art form that could be shared with people you didn’t know, and places you could never even think much about – that could be distributed and disseminated ... So to me it was an art form that could become almost ubiquitous.”

Maitin continued to make posters to support various causes throughout his life. This 1966 photograph depicts his prize-winning entry in the design competition for bookmarks in support of Philadelphia’s Bonds Campaign. His accompanied his abstract graphics with a direct appeal: “vote yes on the City Bonds.”