No arguing with that, is there.
Cecilia Murphy, 1932, est. $1,700-2,000
Although for today’s post, the results we are mostly bothered about come from auctions, as all at once there is a rush of new sales on the horizon and I can hardly keep up.
That poster above is included in Poster Auction International’s May 6 sale in New York. There isn’t a great deal else of British interest there, except to say that it’s always good to see something by Ashley Havinden.
Ashley Havinden, 1932, est $2,000-2,500
I’m also going to make one of my periodic exemptions for things foreign, mainly because this exhibition poster by Max Bill is just an extraordinary piece of design for 1945.
Max Bill, 1945, est. $800-1,000
It still looks modern now, so back then it must have seemed like a visitation from the future.
Other than that, there is what looks like a chance to buy the complete works of Alphonse Mucha, but if you’ve got enough money to do that – estimates go as high as $90,000 – you’re probably not reading this blog for advice on posters.
There’s a bit more to detain the rest of us at the forthcoming Van Sabben auction on April 21st, although most of it comes from the well-trodden paths of airline advertising, wartime and post-war propaganda posters and the London Underground.
Having said that, even these can deliver a few surprises, the greatest of which is probably this Beaumont. In fact more of a fright than a surprise really; Mr Crownfolio is very worried that someone has beheaded their mum and put her in the cabbage patch.
Leonard Beaumont, 1950, est. €120-400
Even at the top end, that estimate seems fairly reasonable when you consider that the lot also includes three other posters of the same ilk, all dating, I think, from after the war.
On a similar theme is this poster, although with the added bonus of an interestingly menacing tone.
Anonymous, 1946, est. €80-160
Once again, there is a slew of airline posters, many of which have featured on this blog before. Of those, the most desirable is probably this Abram Games.
Abram Games, 1949, est. €650-1,000
But there are a few novelties here too. This is one.
Glad, 1949, est €150-280.
I have never come across Glad before, but it’s really rather good, so if anyone can knows more, please do let me know.
The second is by John Bainbridge, about whom I do know more and have been meaning to post about for some time, because he is both excellent and not well enough known.
John Bainbridge, 1949, est. €150-250
Although he worked in Britain for much of his career, John Bainbridge was originally from Australia, and there is a really good archive of his work over there, which I must post about one day.
There aren’t many London Transport posters for once, but those few are quite unusual. This first one can only be from the 1930s.
Roy Meldrum, 1933, est. € 300-600.
Van Sabben also have the poster below dated to 1935, which seemed a bit odd to me. And a brief delve into the LT Museum site gives a date of 1950 instead, as well as confirming that it is one half of a pair poster.
James Arnold, 1950, est. €120-250.
Again, this looks like quite a bargain, as it also gets you this S John Woods poster from the same year as well.
Oddly, the other half of the farms pair poster is also on sale, but in a different lot.
James Arnold, 1950, est. €100
I’m no completist when it comes to pair posters – would you ever really put the other half up on the wall? So given the choice, I think I’d probably rather have the S John Woods instead.
As if all of that wasn’t enough for one day, Poster Connection also have a sale in San Francisco on 28th April. There are airline posters, and that’s probably all I need to say about it. But I did rather like this one.
Anonymous, 1948, est. $200-360.
But it’s not just the gaiety I like, it’s also a reminder of the huge gulf between Britain and America at this point. Britain was still enduring austerity, worse even than during the war, and this brightly coloured poster would have been an unimaginable luxury, depicting foreign travel which could only be dreamed off. Such stuff were for export only, as the country desperately tried to entice Americans over to spend their money, and so help pay off the war debt.
Informative post as usual – thank you.
I think you’ll find that the beheaded cabbage poster is actually by Henrion (I’ve seen one almost identical to this – and signed by him). The Beaumont poster is the ‘Green Vegetables Keep You Well’ example – you can see his signature.
Keep up the good work – your posts are really interesting
Yes, that makes much more sense doesn’t it – I may well have misinterpreted the rather brief description. Still a bit scary though.
Thank you also for the kind words – it’s always good to know that people are reading and enjoying it.
I too thought the cabbage was Henrion and went off to check, rather happily finding this:
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~pv/pv/courses/posters/images6/greensx.html
Which was obviously a red herring, but a nice one nevertheless.
Consulting the Henrion CD produced some years back I can confirm Dr G’s suspicions:
For Vitality Eat Greens Daily
1942
Ministry of Information
Original Artwork
73.5cm by 48.13cm
Printer not known
‘A very surreal and humorous image which depicts a cheerful, happy, young woman, who has half of her face overprinted with a large cabbage. In the background, the same model has been photomontaged three times, arms aloft,to produce a chorus line of cheerful women. Underneath the image is the text which reads as follows, for vitality eat greens daily. The word vitality has had the dots in the letter ‘i’s replaced by stars and the word greens has been printed in green.
This poster was printed but not actually published as it was deemed too humorous for the subject.’
This is obviously the info for the variant of the poster Dr G has seen. Nice to put a date to it though.
I believe it’s just the ‘Green Vegetables keep you well’ which is Beaumont – you can see the signature.
All very informative, but at the same time a bit confusing. So that one, slightly different, was not produced. Does that mean that cutting out the chorus line at the back made it less humourous (and how can one be too humourous about vegetables anyway) and this one was published? Or what? But still very good to know.
I also like your red herring very much. If only the MoI and Ministry of Food had kept decend records…