Freshly-fallen snow, skiers hurtling down the trails of Dartmouth Skiway and the giant snow sculpture on the Green are all iconic images of Winter Carnival, but the face of the February weekend has long been the annual Winter Carnival poster.
Past posters detail the unique themes of each Winter Carnival, often featuring skiers, ice skaters and smiling students, sketched in the familiar shades of Dartmouth green. The 2009 poster is no exception.
"It has a compass watch with a man hiking up a cliff into a gorgeous sunset," Grace Dowd '11, Winter Carnival co-chair, said.
The poster, designed by Jennifer Freise '12, was selected as the winner of this year's contest over nine other submissions.
While her watercolor-and-ink poster design honored the 2009 Carnival theme of "Summiting a Century: 100 Years of the DOC," Freise said she was inspired by the 1983 Winter Carnival print.
That year's poster theme,"Rise and Fall of the Frozen Empire," depicted crumbling statues and Neoclassical architecture amidst an arctic wasteland.
"The old posters are really cool," Freise said. "There's such a weight of tradition to them. They speak to the generations of college students who have gone through here."
Dartmouth will release a coffee table book of previous Winter Carnival posters to commemorate the Dartmouth Outing Club's 100th anniversary in conjunction with the University Press of New England, College archivist Peter Carini said.
The book will be released in August 2010, according to Richard Pult, the editor.
Winter Carnival posters have been printed as early as the festival's first celebration 1911. Artist Walter Humphries, Class of 1914, depicts a ski jumper sailing over an evergreen forest.
A College-sponsored competition to select the annual poster began in 1936, according to Carini.
"I guess they've become major because of the contest," Carini said. "There's prestige associated with designing them."
Carnival posters have become important collector's items for Dartmouth graduates, according to poster dealer Dennis Jette.
"The appeal is primarily from the alumni," said Jette, who sells and buys posters through his business, Paper Americana. "It's a nostalgic thing. Ninety percent of posters I sell are to alumni or friends of the College. But the artwork on some is really stunning."
Original posters produced before about 1960 can sell for $3,000 to $4,000 each, though most cost an average of $35, Jette said.
Potential buyers are often placed on waiting lists for the most sought-after posters, such as the 1925 "The Year the Grinch Stole Carnival" poster.
Jette said that in his experience, the most popular design among buyers is the 1989 "Coming Out of Hibernation" poster, which depicts a polar bear bedecked with snowshoes, skis, a hockey stick and a green Dartmouth sweater. The rarest Winter Carnival poster commemorates the DOC's 25th anniversary, Jette said.
"I have that in my own collection, and I haven't seen it anywhere else," he added.
Rauner Special Collections Library preserves a full collection of every poster ever produced for Winter Carnival. These posters are kept in boxes and are not on display, Carini said.
The special collection also includes various Winter Carnival memorabilia, such as the Queen of the Snow crown, which was given to female pageant winners until 1972.
Poster production has continued uninterrupted since 1926, save for a hiatus in poster publication during World War II, when the massive number of students that were away at war diminished the largesse of Carnival, Carini said.
