auctions Archives - Page 16 of 19

You Can Be Sure of Shell

auctions

The relationship between archives and the internet is not always a one way street. What gets most discussion is how, and whether, archives are putting their catalogues and content on line. But in the meantime, the internet itself is also becoming the archive.

Here’s a fascinating example. It’s something I’ve touched on before, but it’s such an extraordinary (and well-hidden) resource that it deserves its own post.

Way, way down in the bowels of the Sothebys website, their catalogues now go backfor more than 10 years. And so they include the 2002 sale of many of the original paintings commissioned by Shell for its post-war educational posters.

Now, this isn’t your typical poster sale. To start with, Shell didn’t really commission the usual run of poster artists for their educational posters, the people concerned are mostly illustrators. Some of the finest illustrators working in the 1950s and 60s, to be precise, like David Gentleman, S R Badmin, Tristram Hillier and Rowland Hilder.

Perhaps the best-known illustrations for sale were the images of individual counties, which were covers for the Shell Guides as well as centre-pieces for the associated posters.

S R Badmin original illustration for shell county guide
S R Badmin, Derbyshire

Rowland Hilder, Kent

Ian Henderson, Worcestershire

Richard Eurich, Cornwall

I don’t think I’ve ever come across the Worcestershire one before (and I would have noticed it if I had, not only is it a great piece of design, but Worcester is where the Crownfolio family came from, back in the day). The Eurich, meanwhile, was the most expensive of the county illustrations, going for a quite spectacular £12,925.

But detailed illustration did seem to be what the buyers wanted most. The highest-prices went to the S R Badmin images of trees through the year. Here’s February (£14,100) and September (£10,340).

Although Tristram Hillier’s Fossils also went for £14,100, but that’s because it’s genius.

While David Gentleman’s Roads series (which I love almost the best) went for hardly anything.

And why Ermine Street fetched £3,290 while the Ridgeway fetched only £999, I will never understand. Why pay more for tarmac?

But to some degree, the prices aren’t the most interesting thing about the auction. What I like most about the archive is that it is there at all. Here, for the last time, all of Shell’s illustrations are gathered together, from the famous ones,

Rowland Hilder Sussex shell County guide poster illustration
Rowland Hilder, Sussex

to some that I never knew existed.

David Conner Rousham Court shell illustration
David Conner, Rousham Court

It should have been a book. But at least it is still out there on the web.

How to get there

auctions

It’s auction time again. Or, as an email I received this week would have it, Reminder Poster Auctioneer.

“We are pleased to offer these posters at call prices far below their value.” they go on to say. ” Don’t hesitate, come and discover for yourself – we are convinced that everybody will find what they are looking for.”

Sadly, we probably won’t though, because they are trying to entice us to bid at a Swiss auction, Swiss not only in the sense of being held in Zurich, but also in that it is almost entirely comprised of Swiss posters. Hundreds of them.

There are some nice things, like the Emil Hotz and Wolfgang Hausaman above, but nothing really to detain us. Except of course, being British, a poster that says Pschitt.

It shouldn’t be funny, really, but it is.

More locally, though, Cameo Auctions are having a travel, advertising, railway and everything but the kitchen sink auction next week. And in amongst a soup of Olympics and Austrian travel posters are a couple of real gems. This Zero from 1947 is my favourite.

But for a real modernist design classic, you couldn’t do much better than this – McKnight Kauffer at the peak of his powers in 1922.

It has an estimate of £3-5000 though, so I probably won’t be bidding on it.

If that’s a bit too painful for your purse there are also a range of London Transport oddities for a more reasonable price (mostly under £100). This 1962 poster by J E Kashdan is probably my favourite.

But there are also these three ‘How to Get There posters’ from the same period.

The first two are by Victoria Davidson, the last by Hans Unger.

Plus this rather over-informative British Railways poster on the subject of freight, by Blake.

But what really grabbed my attention was the close-up of the background. They really should release that as wall-paper.

As if that wasn’t enough, Christies have also released the catalogue for their November poster auction. At first glance, it looks as though the new higher minimum lot price has excluded almost anything that I might be interested in. But I’ll take a proper look at it over the weekend and report back next week.

Auction thoughts

auctions

Once the dust had settled, I had hoped to come up with some conclusions about the Morphets bus and train extravaganza of last week. But the more I look at the results, the more my brain becomes addled. This isn’t just the result of the scale of it all, although that hasn’t got any better, it’s also because I’m not entirely sure there are that many conclusions to be drawn.

So let’s start with some simple thoughts. Expensive posters sold for lots of money.

This went for £2400, which is pretty much what I’ve seen it go for every time.

People still like to buy pictures of trains. It seems that they also like to buy pictures of motorbikes too.

Any other reason for that fetching £300 rather escapes me.

People like pictures which look like real things in general. So this Riley fetched £500,

while the Amstutz of the same subject only went for £240. (Apparently it is possible to go and stay on restored camping coaches even today. I must investigate further.)

Most of all though, what people like to buy most of all are nice pictures of landscapes which look a bit like proper art. So posters like these,

are highly desirable and go for £600 and £750 respectively.

This rule seems to work for bus posters too – this Lander reached a very respectable £340.

Although even I can see the appeal of that one.

But as I mentioned before, things which looked less like fields and more like design didn’t do so well. The Paddens, Coopers and their like didn’t reach anything like the prices I expected. There were a few exceptions to this which are worth taking a look at.

Firstly, kitschy 50s graphics seemed to be selling well – this Bromfield fetched £440.

While at a lower level, this rather nice Studio Seven pair fetched £70, more than most coach posters were managing to do.

Even more odd was that, in a complete reversal of the normal situation, artworks fetched more than the original posters. Royston Cooper’s airport artwork went for £320,

when you could have picked up the poster, as one of a pair, for £38.

While this Daphne Padden ark-work sold for £240, more than any of her individual posters made. Go figure.

But there was one big exception to the rule that good design didn’t sell – although perhaps not quite so much of an exception considering that it is a picture of a field as well.

Tom Eckersley’s Lincolnshire reached £550. Two readers of this blog battled with us over it – we lost but it’s going to a good home over in Norfolk so I don’t mind. Not too much anyway.

Poster Mathematics

auctions

I can’t resist a few instant observations about Morphets. The full set of opinions will have to wait until I’ve got the complete results in front of me and some more time, but for the moment, we’ll deal with what I know.

Firstly, it’s clear that not many people like Daphne Padden and Royston Cooper as much as we do.

This is both a good thing and a bad thing. It does mean that we can pick up some lovely posters for rather less than we thought we’d have to pay – the lot above went for just £85. How anyone can not like that right hand poster in particular is beyond me. I particularly love it because the woman looks like all of my aunts in old photographs, but that’s incidental, it’s wonderful anyway.

But it also means that their work still isn’t getting the acclaim and recognition that they both deserve; particularly when kitschy 1950s seaside posters were going for way more. Perhaps it will just take a bit longer for the 1960s to come into fashion properly.

A possible third explanation (which would account for more than just these prices) is that the kind of people who buy 1960s posters don’t tend to hang around at railway and coach sales in Harrogate. Which is their loss. The left hand one above, incidentally, is an Eckersley which I have never seen before. Has anyone else spotted it elsewhere?

Although more likely is that there just isn’t a developed enough market in coach posters for people to be competing over them. Because 1960s London Underground posters did do well, with most of them hitting £80 – £100+, like this delectable John Burningham.

All of which adds up to the fact that I don’t really have a definite answer on Padden and Cooper values; if you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them.

My other main observation is that auctions and their prices operate outside the world of logic, and I shall illustrate this with a small amount of mathematics.

This pair of posters went for £80.

If we say that the poster on the left is worth no more than £20, that values our sailor at £60. So far so good.

This pair then went for £260.

Which makes our friends with the cat worth £200-ish.

Except that, just a few lots later, this went for just £65.

Despite the fact that this version is in better condition. Unless the very subtle differences in the typography matter to people, this makes no sense at all. But I can’t think about it any more because it’s making my head ache.

More thoughts on Morphets later on this week, something completely different tomorrow.

The thick of it

auctions

It’s impossible to get a sense of the Morphet’s sale while it’s still yelling away in the corner of my screen, but two brief observations from yesterday.

Firstly, what kind of a mad world is it where this costs £160

while this

costs hundreds more. I don’t understand, I really don’t.

I also noticed this go past yesterday.

Same picture, four different towns. That’s cheating. But does anyone know where it is really?

But much more exciting is that we won this wonderful Amstutz.

It’s been on this blog’s ‘About Us’ page since the very start. And now it’s going to be on our walls. Hurrah for that.

More on the sale next week, once I’ve sold all my household goods, cats and anything else that might meet the bill. And built a few more walls to hang everything on.

Too many auctions

auctions

Today, for a bit of light relief, I’m going to write about some auctions that aren’t Morphets (although, fear not, a normal service will return later this week).

To start with, Wallis and Wallis down in Lewes are selling yet more of their seemingly inexhaustible supply of World War Two propaganda posters.

I’m not going to go into much detail, partly because it’s much the same as the last three times, but mainly because the Wallis and Wallis website is so infuriating. Most of the posters aren’t illustrated at all, and I can’t find out what anything made at the previous sales because it simply won’t tell me.

They have at least photographed these three rather fine posters that I think are by Pat Keely. Mind you, I’ve had to conclude that from squinting at the signatures, because the descriptions are rather vague. But I like them, and haven’t seen them illustrated elsewhere.

I’m also minded to try and advance to Air Artificer as well. Any suggestions as to how?

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Swann Galleries are also having a poster sale.

A quick flick through the catalogue reinforces the point that Paul Rennie makes about his own collection in Modern British Posters,

British items were generally of little interest to international collectors and were, accordingly, less expensive to purchase

Fight your way through the swathes of American war posters and French Art Nouveau, but you still won’t find much from Britain here.

There are railway posters.

Of course there are railway posters. Although this set (lot 230), by Pat Keely for the Southern Region just before the outbreak of war, are more interesting than the average.

There are four in total, and they look even better en mass – a stylistic bridge between Art Deco and the simplifications of the post-war style. Worth a look.

There are also London Underground posters too. This is by Charles Burton, from 1930.

While this bus poster, by Fred Taylor, seems impossibly sleek and minimalist for 1923. It’s wonderful.

There’s some Hans Unger too, if all that’s a bit too pre-war for you.

It’s one half of a pair poster from 1957 and quite expensive at $400-600. We paid £130 for both halves not that long ago so let’s see what the Americans think it is worth.

Aside from the expected, there are also a few interesting odds and ends, like these BOAC posters for Earls Court Motor Shows. The first one is particularly good, and I’d love to know if anyone has any information on it.

There are also, not for the first time, dozens of American motivational posters. I’m rather intrigued by these, in a slightly horrified way. Were they the from the war or the depression? Were they produced by the government, or like educational posters, sold into workplaces? Does anyone know and can tell me?

But I rather like this one, although for all the wrong reasons.

It’s not just the libel against the Spanish, although that’s quite funny on its own; it’s also the fact that I think I’d have the siesta and the work-life balance of the Spaniard over the American motivational poster any day.

Finally, there’s this, which is here for no other reason than I like it very much indeed.

It’s like an Indian Daphne Padden. More of her stuff later this week, by the way.