“‘The Pursuit’ contemporizes the visual precedent set in place by artists such as Thomas Hart Benton and Diego Rivera—artists who created large-scale murals that celebrated everyday heroism and demonstrated that economic difficulty could not stop the pursuit of the American Dream,” the agency explains at its website.

“To bring this vision to life, we employed the talents of two of the world’s most iconic image-makers, photographer Nadav Kander and director Tarsem. Inspired by the references of the large-scale murals, they created a modern tableau vivant for Morgan Stanley using a delicate balance of real, painted and digital visuals.”

Photo by Nadav Kander for Morgan Stanley.

Read more about the making of the campaign at Adweek: “Spirit of 1930s New Deal Murals Lives On in Morgan Stanley Campaign.”

Credits

Alon Shoval, creative director
Neel Williams, senior copywriter
D’Arcy O’Neill, ACD/art director
Paul Martin, senior print producer
Anya Mills, senior art producer

The brief for the ads—which began running this week in The Wall Street Journal—was to combine “portraiture and images of industry, business, and philanthropy,” explains Creativity, which is featuring the campaign at its website. “The ads…are also intended to communicate…that the U.S. wealth management business, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, has been renamed Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.”

Here’s a selection of ads from the campaign, which was also spotlighted at the website Ads of the World…

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Photo by Nadav Kander for Morgan Stanley and the Martin Agency.

Photo by Nadav Kander for Morgan Stanley and the Martin Agency.

Photo by Nadav Kander for Morgan Stanley and the Martin Agency.

Photo by Nadav Kander for Morgan Stanley and the Martin Agency.

Photo by Nadav Kander for Morgan Stanley and the Martin Agency.

Photo by Nadav Kander for Morgan Stanley and the Martin Agency.

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Credits

Agency: The Martin Agency, USA
Executive creative director: Joe Alexander
Creative director: Alon Shoval
Senior copywriter: Neel Williams
Associate creative director/art director: D’Arcy O’Neill
Associate creative director/copywriter: Rex McCubbin
Associate creative director/designer: Lionel Bui
Project manager: Rebecca Gricus
Senior print producer: Paul Martin
Senior art producer: Anya Mills
Photographer: Nadav Kander
Postproduction company: Artjail
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