LONDON Norman Rockwell came up with a mosaic.
Pablo Picasso stuck to paint. And Superman joined forces with wonderwoman in his bid to rid the world of evil.
As world leaders gather for a millennium summit at the United Nations, a new book reveals 50 years of art deployed by the global body in its drive for a better world.
"Whether recent or half a century old, the artwork depicts ideas and values that are timeless.
Through them, with an eye on the future, we can gain a fresh perspective on the human condition," said Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations, in an introduction to the new collection.
"For a better world: Posters from the United Nations" bills itself as the first comprehensive collection of the UN's vast gallery of posters with a purpose.
Predictably enough, fluttering doves loom large, along with raised hands, clenched fists and no end of flags.
Yet alongside are more arresting images, some crafted by giants from the world of art, others by anonymous UN workers.
From Peanuts to Einstein Charlie Brown, the cartoon Brainchild of Charles Schultz, is transformed into an advocate for child welfare in one campaign.
Albert Einstein's image was used in another to remind the world that "a bundle of belongings isn't the only thing a refugee brings to his new country".
Superman, Kermit the Frog, Dennis the Menace ... the list of poster pinups goes on and on.
Yet underlying all the fun was serious work.
From 1981 comes a stark black and white image of two burning candles one stands tall, the other is bent crooked by heat created to highlight the year of the disabled.
There isn't a weak limb or plucky child in sight.
A London advertising agency came up with a comical "Food for All" poster, in which stern military men march cobs of corn, red-hot chillis and rounds of toast to a starving world.
"To behold a single well-wrought poster is a pleasurable thing.
To see this array of UN-produced posters is to immerse oneself in the recent history of humanity's most appalling calamities and its most admirable aspirations," designer Paul Davis, himself a UN poster artist, wrote in the book.
"In an age of multiple media exploding with information, the humble poster is a more popular and powerful form of communication than it has ever been before," said Davis.
Peace and poverty, drugs and disease, refugees and racism all have featured in the UNP Poster Gallery, though the first efforts were woefully short on both elegance and wit.
They existed purely to proclaim the name and identity of a new global body to an unknowing world. Daggers, doves, hands and skulls were the prominent motifs, the often gloomy results translated into six official UN languages.
"One World or None," proclaimed an early effort by Dutch artist Jans Bons. South Africa's rowan Prins reflected on two world wars and solemnly declared: "The World Must Grow Up".
Some were adapted from art already held in the UN collection, such as Picasso's "Fall of Icarus", and a Marc Chagall stained glass window from UN Headquarters in New York.
Work by Joan Miro was used to mark the 30th anniversary of the UN declaration of human rights, while campaigning artist Keith Haring used simple line drawing and a trademark light touch to promote the UN Children's Fund.
Rockwell implored the world to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" in his "Golden Rule" mosaic.
Another U.S. artist, Robert Rauschenberg, much of whose work centers on world events, has created seven posters for the United Nations, rallying action on everything from the environment to apartheid.
"It is gratifying that many fine artists have been motivated to create posters for the United Nations," said the book's author Edward Marks, who has spent more than 40 years working for various UN and U.S. agencies.
"Taken together, the posters in this book are an important tribute to the United Nations and all it stands for.
They are also a strong testament to the enduring value, beauty and power of the poster as an art form and as a means of communication." (Reuter)