In the days when I used to be in the V&A, which is quite some time ago, each department used to have cases where they displayed recently bought objects, before they found their place in the main collection, with a small paper sign in which read Recent Acquisitions. A friend of mine got hold of one of these and stuck it on her fridge, which amused me a great deal at the time.
All of which is by way of saying that we’ve bought a few things recently (in fact, thanks to the wonder of modern phones, we managed to do most of this on holiday). These GPO posters are small, Demy I think, but each one perfectly formed.
Tom Eckersley, 1955
Beaumont, can’t find a date
Frank Newbould, 1930s?
Although small daughter refuses to be quite persuaded that the image above is actually a telephone.
There’s also the Bloomsbury Sale, which was on Wednesday. I didn’t get time to preview it, what with being in France, but that’s also been handy because I didn’t want to point at this too hard.
It’s by Lewitt Him, and dates from 1938. I’d never seen it before, even though it is in the London Transport Museum Collection now I look. And I think we won it, although I haven’t definitely heard from Bloomsbury that we have yet. We better had, that’s all I’m saying.
There were a few other nice things in there, but the online catalogue seems to have disappeared already so I can’t tell you about then. More fun next week, though, when there will be some pictures of actual vintage posters on billboards for you, and rather good posters at that.