A prophylaxis is any medical or public health procedure whose purpose is to prevent, rather than treat or cure a disease. But let’s be clear: we’re not talking about anything other than condoms here. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the word “Axis” resides in the body of the preventative terminology though. The dictators appear to be battle-ready in this design–except Mussolini, who can’t seem to keep his pants on. Arthur Szyk was a Polish-born American artist, famous for his anti-Axis political illustrations, caricatures, and cartoons produced during World War II, as well as his illustrations for magazines, newspapers, and books. Considered a child prodigy, he studied art at the Académie Julian in Paris, as well as in Krakow and Palestine. After serving on the front lines for the Russian Army during World War I, he became a very politically active artist, using his talents for numerous causes from serving as the director of the Department of Propaganda in Lodz for the Polish army during the Polish-Soviet war to executing a series of thirty-eight watercolor miniatures on George Washington and the American Revolution. Inspired by Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union speech, Szyk created a “Four Freedoms” series––preceding Norman Rockwell by two years—that were used as postage stamps. Over the course of his illustrious career, Szyk became the editorial cartoonist for the New York Post, contributed to Time, Esquire, and Collier's, and produced advertisements for Coca Cola and US Steel. But above all else, Szyk dedicated his work to democracy and freedom, an end to political injustice and human suffering, saying of his work, "Art is not my aim, it is my means" and "I am but a Jew praying in art."
literature: PAI-LII, 437