Winners

As promised, the results of last week’s compeitions.   The first thing I need to say is thank you, because this has afforded me a great deal of entertainment; a high standard of entries came in, almost none of which had been seen before on here.  We should do this more often.

All of which has made the judging a bit difficult.  A couple of themes did recur, one of which was the idea that an unseen Daphne Padden poster was bound to be chosen.  I suspect James had his tongue just a little bit in his cheek when he suggested this one.

It’s ours, and as it’s an odd proof copy I rather suspect that there isn’t another one out there either.  Very good.

Other themes included football (which I don’t think I have ever mentioned on here before so it’s a fair cop) and pre-war posters, both of which come together in this 1935 Eckersley-Lombers suggested by medieval modernist.

I will try and remember that quite a few of you like 1930s modernism a bit more than I do when I’m posting from now on.

Another mention also has to go to medieval modernist for putting forward the best thing by a poster artist which isn’t a poster, this card by Tom Eckersley.

It’s great, but it’s definitely not a poster.  So it doesn’t win.

But I can’t keep you on tenterhooks forever.  The winner, then, has to be this, for being so completely Quad Royal that I am bashing my head repeatedly against the desk in bewilderment that I haven’t put it on here before.

And that’s before I award the extra points for Diamond Jubilee topicality.  So congratualations to self-confessed ‘new kid on the block’ Nick Morgan, who will get a copy of the book by post at some point this week, when buying the new Crownfolio Towers allows.

There was only supposed to be one winner, but then the publishers, Shire, came through and offered another prize.  That will be going to this piece of ‘Ralph Mott’ (aka artists agents’ Ralph and Mott, aka probably Reg Lander who was their studio manager), which although pre-war has to win for being not only modernist and bizarre, but also the worst piece of photoshopping ever done before the invention of Photoshop.

Just look at the legs on that cow.  Another book will be off to Sanderson in due course.

That’s actually the original artwork, which is currently on sale at Liss Fine Art.  It’s worth following the link as there are some other crackers there, shown alongside the finished posters.  Oddly, the railways don’t seem to have produced a poster from the image above. Can’t think why.  What’s also strange is the lorry says ‘British Railways’ down the side, over what looks like Tippex, while the other posters were commissioned by the big four pre-war companies.  Perhaps this one was never produced because of the war and then they thought about having another go afterwards.  And then looked at the legs on that cow and shook their heads.

Finally, there was one more copy going in a general draw for comments/tweets/followers and that’s gone to @NemesisRepublic on Twitter.

So thank you again to everyone who took part.  Normal service will finally resume later this week, with a good look at the new Onslows sale.