Chicago, IL.- The Art Institute of Chicago is pleased to present “Windows on the War: Soviet TASS Posters at Home and Abroad, 1941–1945” from July 31st through October 23rd. In 1997, 26 tightly wrapped brown paper parcels were discovered deep in a storage area for the Art Institute of Chicago’s Department of Prints and Drawings. Their presence was a mystery, their contents a puzzle. As conservators and curators carefully worked to open the envelopes, they were surprised and intrigued to find that they contained 50-year-old monumental posters created by TASS, the Soviet Union’s news agency. The idea for a major exhibition began to take shape. Impressively large—between five and ten feet tall—and striking in the vibrancy and texture of the stencil medium, these posters were sent abroad, including to the Art Institute, to serve as international cultural “ambassadors” and to rally allied and neutral nations to the endeavors of the Soviet Union, a partner of the United States and Great Britain in the fight against Nazi Germany.