Posts - Page 78 of 96

Two for the shelves

eBay

Look what’s turned up on eBay.

Poster Design by Tom Eckersley. Currently a complete steal at £6, but I suspect it will go higher, as the going rate on Abebooks is running close to £50.

But mostly pleasing because it allows me to post this again.

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Who knew colour separation could be such fun.

While we’re thinking about books on eBay, you could also also pick up “the definitive book on London Transport posters“. Perhaps.

But you only get to see the book way down their listing; they’re advertising it via this rather lovely bit of Bawden.

It comes from this 1936 poster for Kew Gardens.

This is currently at 99p (the book, not the poster), but again I’m sure that won’t last. Watch and wait.

I was thinking about elderberry cordial, and so dug this out of a drawer. Then I was so struck by what a beautiful image it is that I forgot all about recipes and went off on the trail of its design instead.

The book is the Womens Institute Book of Home Made Wines Syrups and Cordials. Curiously, it has an introduction by our old friend Sir Stephen Tallents of GPO and Empire Marketing Board fame (who says that country wine is a good thing and so is the W.I.), but it’s the illustrations that are the real star here.

They’re by Roger Nicholson, who did what I think is an even more lovely job of the back cover.

As well as a series of very attractive line drawings for the inside too.

This is for Equipment, while below is Herb Wines.

The first edition was 1954, which I’m guessing must be when the drawings date from, but it was published in exactly the same form until at least 1967. I should know, for some reason I have three copies.

Still, it is very useful.

Something about the style reminds me of this book, the wonderful Plats du Jour, illustrated by David Gentleman, which happened to be on the shelves above.

And which also has a similarly appealing back cover.

This too has lovely black and white illustrations heading each chapter.

I could quite happily scan each and every one of them, except that I’m afraid I would break the spine.

Plats du Jour was published in 1957, so together these books are a reminder that there was a lot more going on in post-war Britain than just modernism. I’m thinking about this a lot at the moment, partly because of Paul Rennie’s book, and will write some more on it in a week or two. But for now, I wanted to celebrate Roger Nicholson.

He turns out to be the sort of person who ought to be better known. He painted and did graphic design as well as these illustrations, but his main work was in fabrics and the like – he was Professor of Textile Design at the Royal College of Art in the late 50s and 60s and produced some very well-known wallpaper designs as well.

But I can’t turn up a lot of his stuff. Here’s a poster he designed for the Festival of Britain (thanks to the Museum of London archive that I’ve mentioned before).

And here is one of his textile designs from 1951.

But that, I am afraid, is it. It’s a real shame, I would have loved to see more and to know more.

I did managed to find one short biography as well, which offered an intriguing quote about his work.

It was Roger Nicholson’s gift and curse as an artist that he was incapable of making an ugly mark on a piece of paper.

There are far worse ways to be remembered, but I think he deserves a bit more than just this.

Rich Inner Substance

other

We’re going out of our usual territory today, but the detour is worth it. The destination? The Museum of Anti-Alcohol Posters.

Out Soviet Anti Alcohol poster
Out!

This is a great collection of anti-drinking posters put together by Yuri Matrosovich for no other reason than his own amusement.

To Health Soviet anti-alcohol poster
To Health!

He found a few, then started to collect them, and then put them online and that is, er, it.

All the information I can give you about them is the English translations that he’s provided (and if anyone feels up to translating the one above I’d be very grateful); not knowing any Russian, I can’t discover dates or designers or, indeed, anything at all.

Socially Dangerous Russian anti-alcohol poster
Socially dangerous!

All there is to do is enjoy them. There are plenty more on Yuri’s website, but as he himself says, some are brilliant, some a bit more slapdash. But worth taking a look at anyway.

Rich Inner Substance Russian anti-alcohol poster
Rich Inner Substance

And now I’m off for a drink.

Designer O’ Nine Lives

designers

Not for the first time, or indeed the last, we’re exploring the cross-over between children’s illustrations and graphic design of genius, this time in the company of Tom Eckersley.

It seems to be fairly well known that he did the illustrations for a couple of children’s books, but it’s rather harder to actually catch sight of them.

So today, here are some of the illustrations he did for Cat O’Nine Lives back in 1946.

Quite apart from the design, the book has an autobiographical interest too. It was written by his first wife Daisy, and is dedicated “To our sons: Anthony and Richard”.

I haven’t counted all the illustrations, but there are two kinds. Some are full-page, inserted into the chapters on and with the whole page overprinted so that it is a different colour, like the owl and the artist below.

Then there are smaller illustrations at the start of each chapter.

Some are entirely black and white, a few have a single additional colour.

The paper quality isn’t the greatest, and the book itself is quite small (about 4.75″ x 7″), but given that it was printed just after the war this probably isn’t surprising.

What I find really interesting is how simple his illustrations are at this point in his career. It’s as though he started out with an almost minimalist style, then became much more complicated and ornamental throughout the 1950s, and then, gradually, he unpicks this to become more and more simple once again.

You will notice that I say nothing about the story. I quite like cats, but still find it fairly fey going. But should you ever trip over it in a second hand book shop, don’t let that put you off. As you can see, it’s worth it for the illustrations alone.

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.

Bits, bobs, and Bawden

eBay

Although I’ve been mildly obsessed with what’s been happening in Harrogate, life has in fact been going on elsewhere.

This rather wonderful Abram Games poster went past on eBay on Monday, for a what seems like a fair £231.

I’ve never seen one out in the wild before, and I approve of it.

Meanwhile, if you do have any money left, a few other posters are also coming up in the next week or so should you fancy them.

Probably the most interesting is this London Electricity Board poster. The seller actually has three, but this one by Geoffrey Clarke is my favourite.

The listing says that they’re from the late 1940s, and they seem to be from a collaboration between the LEB and the Royal College of Art. They’re another example of how our history of posters is mostly determined by what survived; these are really interesting attempts to produce posters of cultural worth, just as the GPO or Shell did, but I’ve never come across them before or seen them mentioned. If anyone can shed any more light on them, I’d be really grateful.

Elsewhere, this slightly odd Geraldine Knight poster is from 1972, with an inital asking price of £30.

The original artwork is pictured on the London Transport Museum site, and it’s a great lump of bronze. Which may quite possibly make this poster unique. And I imagine plays havoc with their archiving systems.

Then, in competition for worst eBay picture of the week, there is this Badmin coach design.

The seller is hoping for £99, which isn’t entirely unreasonable given the prices that this kind of thing was fetching at Morphets (I wonder if that’s what flushed it out onto eBay or whether it’s a simple coincidence). But it’s a very high start price, and probably needs a few more photos to do well. As ever, watch this space.

And then there’s this, which isn’t a poster at all but is so delightful that I can’t resist, and has the added bonus of almost certainly not going for £99.

It’s from 1962 by James Mawtus-Judd, about whom I can discover precisely nothing at all. But it’s still lovely

Finally, I’ve been meaning to mention Martin Steenson’s blog for a while. He has the admirable aim of providing a proper overview of the work of well known artists and designers (as opposed to the scattered thoughts and biased opinions on offer over here).

His latest piece is on Edward Bawden, so please do go and take a look.