Not to be sneezed at

Apologies for the radio silence, I have had raging tonsillitis and not been able to string even a simple sentence together until now.

Imperial War Museum poster world war two propaganda poster british public

Competition results will appear on Monday, and there’s still time to squeeze some last entries in before the 5pm deadline.  See you next week for some proper posts.  Cough.

Celebrations, assorted

Despite my promises, a normal service will not be operating today either, because it’s all be a bit exciting down here in the sticks.  Yesterday we had both the Olympic torch and Jubilee picnic, which is all a bit much for one day.  By way of commemoration, have a an appropriately festive poster.

John Gilroy vintage Guinness coronation poster 1953

It is compulsory, whenever this poster is displayed, to say that it was the first ever advertising poster not to include the name of the product, because the Guinness animals were so well-recognised (although we did once manage to buy one on eBay which had been misdescribed as a circus poster, so that isn’t always true).

But the British Posters book, as well as pointing this out, is also quite interesting on the context in which it was displayed (I am going to gripe a little bit about the book when I finally get round to reviewing it, but one thing it is very good on is the history of poster display, a subject which I’ve never thought about properly before but now possess useful facts about.)

Hugh Casson design for coronation decorations

Hugh Casson, who designed the street decorations (his designs for Shaftesbury Avenue above), took the need for advertising hoardings into account as part of this.  So he asked firms to produce relevant and tasteful posters for display along the route, and the Guinness poster was one of those.  Here it is by Trafalgar Square as the procession passes by.

Coronation crowds with guinness poster

Which makes it seem less of a remarkable marketing coup, and more part of a grand plan of deference.  I wonder what the other posters were like?  I can’t seem to find pictures of any of them.

But the whole shebang is also an excuse for me to post this, which is a label for a Jubilee cider produced just down the road from here.  And it’s of interest to us because it’s been inspired by the designs of Tom Eckersley, specifically his Gillette dogs and Victoria line crowns.  There isn’t enough of that kind of inspiration going on if you ask me.

Jubilee cider label

It’s also very appropriate for yet another celebration.  Mr Crownfolio and I bought a pub yesterday.  Well an ex-pub, but it was one for a few hundred years.  So I suspect there’s quite a bit of cider been spilt on those floors before now.  Cheers.

 

Krol to be kind

We bought this quite a while ago, but only recently got round to photographing it.

Stan Krol vintage GPO poster March 1966 TV and radio licensing

It’s by Stan Krol, and thanks to the BMPA and their lovely online catalogue I can tell you that it’s from March 1966.  A date that slightly surprised me as I would have had it down as late 1950s had I been asked.  And when I look at the catalogue closely, this poster is sandwiched in between lots of other 1950s posters so I am wondering whether this might be a typo.  I will ask them.

What I can’t tell you and don’t know, however, is much about Stan Krol himself.  I’ve been trying to research him for the last week or two and it’s been a useful lesson in two ways.  One is that sometimes it really isn’t possible to find out much other than that someone once designed posters and was born in 1910, the one biographical fact I do have about him.  The other is that not all designers from the past are in fact undiscovered geniuses.  Which isn’t to say that Stan Krol is a bad designer at all, he did some great stuff, like this poster for the Post Office Savings Bank from 1960, when Krol was already turning 50.

Stan Krol vintage Post Office Savings Bank poster 1960

In fact it’s the BPMA archive that can tell me the most about Krol’s career.  He started working for them in the late 1940s, which is when these two usefully informative internal posters come from.

Staff information poster for Telegraph engineers; featuring a telegraph pole. Also included is a proof of this poster, with artist's details on the back. Artist: Krol, Stan.  Printer: Waterlow & Sons Ltd.

Poster explaining the correct procedure for removing manhole covers; featuring a picture of a manhole cover. Artist: Krol, Stan.  Printer: Fosh & Cross Ltd. Vintage GPO poster

He carries on working for them throughout the 1950s.

Stan Krol vintage GPO poster 1950

stan Krol 1956 vintage GPO postal order poster

He carried on throughout the 1960s as well.

Stan Krol vintage Post Office Savings Bank poster 1960

Stan Krol vintage GPO recruitment poste 1962

He was even producing posters for them as late as 1971.

Stan Krol vintage national savings bank poster 1971 decimalisation

When you lay out all of his GPO stuff like that, it’s not a bad selection of work.  But what’s strange is both how little he seems to have done for other people, and how that mostly wasn’t as good.  This, for example, is one of just two posters he did for London Transport.

Stan Krol vintage London Transport poster anniversaries 1966

He also did a fairly standard blue skies BOAC poster at some point, which does make me think of peeling a banana.

Stan Krol vintage BOAC poster 1950s

Along with a United National poster in a similar style

stan Krol vintage poster United Nations

But he was still capable of some surprises too.  I like this ROSPA poster from 1971 more than most people would simply because it has a black cat on it.

Stan Krol vintage ROSPA safety poster 1971

But the two coach posters that I’ve seen of his – both from the 1960s are just plain great.

Stan Krol Morecambe beauty contest vintage coach poster 1967

Stan Krol vintage Bridlington poster 1967 coach poster

Both of these are courtesy of Fears and Kahn; the Morecambe bathing beauties have sadly sold, but Bridlington is still there if it has taken your fancy.

Now that I’ve laid Krol’s work end to end along the blog, I like it a lot more than I did when I began.  He fitted his style to the times very well, a particularly impressive feat when you consider that he was producing his last posters when he was in his 60s.  Yes, he may not be an undiscovered genius, but he was a very good working designer.  And they need celebrating as well.

The book of the website

Well, nearly.

But I have written a book, for the very lovely Shire Publications, about World War Two Home Front posters, and my preview copy arrived in the post just before the weekend.

Home Front Posters Shire books Susannah Walker front cover

Should you wish,  you can pre-order it on Amazon right now.  Which of course you would very much want to do because it’s full of lots of  illustrations of lovely posters, like this one.

Frank Newbould Your Britain Fight for It Now

And this one too.

Lewitt Him Vitamin overcooking WW2 vintage poster ministry of food

Along with a fair bit of me going on about the posters – and then oddities like this, which I just love.

Ministry of Information advertisement about information.  You couldn't make it up

Do you have too much information? Well here’s some information about having too much information.  These were very different days, my friends.

The People Bring Much More Than Enough For The Service Of The Work

I’m back with the Empire Marketing Board posters once again.  In particular this one, which neatly encapsulates the problem of Empire in a single image.

The people bring.. vintage Empire Marketing Board poster

I rather doubt that it was intended to give exactly that message; nonetheless it is rather brilliant.

This treat comes from a wholly new archive of Empire Marketing Board output in the National Library and Archives of Canada, which I was introduced to by sometime commenter on the blog, Mike Meredith.  It is a treasure chest of things I have not seen before – well over 400 of them in fact, and I haven’t finished sifting through them yet.  Here are just a few for starters, these two by Clive Gardiner in a very modern style.

Blast Furnace Vintage Empire marketing board poster Clive Gardiner

making electrical machinery Vintage Empire marketing board poster Clive Gardiner

While this John Ensor is modern in a slightly different, almost early-1950s kind of way.

John Ensor - Vintage Empire marketing board poster Wine

This collection is a reminder that the EMB was not just exhorting the British people to support the Empire, the colonies had to do their bit as well.

Buy Empire Goods first - Empire Marketing Board poster

Not everything can be a work of art, you know.

But Mike Meredith hasn’t just been looking through the archives, he has also been doing something rather interesting with these posters.  He’s been arranging them as they were meant to be seen.

I’ve mentioned in passing before that the Empire Marketing board had special display stands for their posters.  A rather interesting article (about the EMB’s relationship with the Irish Free State) gives a very good description of what these were like.  The EMB,

displayed approximately one hundred poster series on specially built wooden frames.Each series featured five different posters:three 60 inch by 40 inch pictorial ones and two smaller posters that carried press messages offering details of the country being promoted or messages advancing imperial trade. The five posters on each frame endorsed a linked theme — for example, fruit from the tropics or the value of import – export trade with Australia. By 1933, poster frames at 1,800 different sites graced 450 British towns

The only thing missing from that description is the title strip which ran across the top.  But why should I just tell you about these when I could show you?  Because what Mike Meredith has been doing is stitching together these posters from the archives to get a sense of what they would have looked like when they were on display.

Not only is it brilliant to look at, I also think it’s important too.  Take a single poster – as I have been doing at the top of this post – and they are quite good.  Take a whole set together and they are quite frankly stunning. (Click on the image below to see it at a decent size.)

Buy Empire Goods vintage Empire Marketing board poster strip

They must have looked extraordinary on the streets of Britain in the 1930s, like nothing else that could be seen there.  Surely not even the most jaded observer of city life would have been able to just let their eyes drift over these posters each time the displays were changed.  You would have to stop and stare.

Empire Marketing Board posters as complete strip

Especially at these McKnight Kauffers, which bring all of the glamour of a Hollywood title sequence straight onto the streets of a British town or city.

McKnight Kauffer Empire Marketing Board framed set

The cinema wasn’t the only referent of modernity, this Austin Cooper set links the old-fashioned Victorian Empire with the excitingly modern telephone.

Austin Cooper vintage Empire Marketing Board poster set Order by Telephone

Displayed like this, even graphs could become dynamic symbols of the modern age.

Empire Share vintage Empire marketing board set

But even the more traditional designs have a very different impact when seen en masse.

Australian Scenery vintage empire marketing board posters

Nicholson Empire Marketing Board set of posters

This doesn’t just make me rethink the value of the Empire Marketing Board posters, and the ground-breaking nature of the Board’s work – along with its leading man Stephen Tallents.  It’s also a reminder that, whenever we look at a poster, it’s essential to remember the context in which it was not only produced, but displayed.

Commercial posters of the 1950s were not only bright and jolly because that was the mood of the times.  They were put up against a background of unpainted houses and crumbling war damage, a Britain that was agreed to be grey, dreary and run down.  So their bright colours must have looked a thousand times more vibrant against that monochrome streetscape.

And the EMB posters which, on their own, can seem to be a bit like inoffensive railway posters or pieces of art, take on a whole new energy and surprise in their block displays.

Empire Marketing Board posters is all I know

Sometimes, we can appreciate a poster by looking at it against the white walls of a gallery as though it was a piece of art.  But more often, as is very much the case with these Empire Marketing Board posters, we also lose a lot that way.  A poster, or indeed a set of posters, is not a timeless object, but is produced not just in a single moment and place but also for that moment and place as well.

Carlton Empire Marketing board posters

So if we don’t pay attention to that when and where and how, we will never hear much of what that poster might be able to say to us.

Cheap and Expensive

Bonus extra blog post today (although I can’t type very well at the moment because my fingers are freezing).  I was going to put the eBay news on the end of yesterday’s post, but then it turned out that there was quite a lot on offer.  So now they have a post of their own instead.

The posters up on eBay at the moment seem to fall into a few tidy categories.  Firstly are expensive posters which probably have a right to be expensive.  Top of this list is this Jack Merriott British Railways poster.

Jack Merriott Findhorn British Railways poster

With just a few hours to go it’s already at £415  – a price which will probably have risen even higher by the time I press ‘publish’ on this post.  It might well make almost as much as the version which went at Morphets two years ago, which sold for £600.  For the right poster, it’s starting to look as though eBay wins hands down over the auction houses, simply because the fees are so much lower.  That’s if you’re selling of course; for buyers, I’m not so sure.  I still slightly balk at spending that much money on something I haven’t seen in the flesh.

Another example of the righteously expensive is another British Railways poster, also going today and currently at £142.

Edward Wesson vintage British Railways poster 1950s Moulsham

Finally in this category is a lovely London Transport poster which has been mentioned in dispatches on here before.

Vintage London Transport poster How to make a party go D M Earnshaw

The Buy It Now price of £390 strikes me as a bit more of a dealer level than an eBay level.  But then it is framed, and given what the Findhorn poster is going for anything could be possible these days.

Category two is expensive things which are currently going cheap.  Like this Guinness poster which is currently at £10.50 but, if it is original, is going for a song.

Vintage guinnes poster gilroy Zookeeper and seal

Of course whether something is original or not is always the question looming over every eBay listing.  The dimensions look right on this one, although it is a bit clean.  Any thoughts anyone?

Also cheap is this very odd survival – although I have no idea what it should actually be worth, I suspect it is more than the current £20.  It’s a poster for the 1929 Royal Opera House Ball.  What larks.

Royal Opera House Ball 1929 poster

But it’s rather good, isn’t it.  No word of an artist though.

In the other corner is expensive things which probably should be cheap, and we’ve got just one contender here, this Tom Purvis, which I have difficulty imagining someone paying £149 for.

Tom Purvis Empire Buy British poster

Now don’t get me wrong, because it’s a perfectly good poster, but I just don’t think many people want to hang it on their walls. Or do they?  I shall watch and wait and see.

Then of course there are cheap things that probably should stay that way.  I have a sneaking affection for this British Railways poster – it’s probably the cat – but that still doesn’t make it worth very much.

Vintage British Railways poster Plymouth and Cornwall timetable

So £2.99 is probably about right.   While even £20 seems a bit steep for this National Savings poster, even with the Coronation interest.

National Savings vintage coronation poster

Why were National Savings posters so uniformly dreary, when so many of the posters around them were so good?  Truly I do not know.

Those were going to be your lot, but even as I’ve been writing, some more listings have been passed over to me, and they both come under the heading of things that do not fit into my neat categories at all because I have no idea what they are worth.

This man is selling a big set of Kodak shop display posters.  Given the spelling of color, they are probably American, but I won’t hold that against them too much.

1950s Kodak display card

1950s Kodak display card

The starting price for each is £19.99 but I have no idea if that is fair or not.

This, meanwhile, is not a poster despite appearances to the contrary.  It’s a showcard.

Tom Eckersley vintage Guinness poster showcard

But as it’s currently priced at 99p I can say with some confidence that it is a bargain.  And would look rather good on someone’s bookshelves, I think.