After World War II, the United States launched the European Recovery Program (known as the Marshall Plan) in 1948 to help rebuild Western European economies.
In 1950, the U.S. Cooperation Administration launched the “Intra-European Cooperation for a Better Standard of Living” poster contest across participating European nations.
More than 10,000 designs were submitted from 13 different countries and the Italian artist Mario Puppo’s design won 4th place. The winning 25 posters were lithographed, (notably by the Rotterdam-based printer Kuhn & Zoon) and distributed across Western Europe in multiple languages.
