Posts - Page 84 of 96

To war, again

auctions

It’s auctions a-go-go this week. And the next on our list is yet another tranche of World War Two posters for Wallis and Wallis down in darkest Sussex, to be sold on Tuesday.

I’m rather reluctant to deal with what’s on offer this time round (61 lots, a good hundred posters at a guess) because the whole set up makes my head ache. It’s not just the fact that they’ve listed the posters as being either A3 or A1, when they surely must be in Imperial measurements.

Even more frustratingly, only eleven of the posters are actually illustrated, and those seem to have been chosen by sticking pins in the catalogue at random. World War I recruiting poster in Welsh, anyone?

Independence calls for the bravest man, apparently.

Or then this,

which has been illustrated in preference to a Dame Laura Knight poster for “War Pictures by British Artists. National Gallery Trafalgar Square”. Apparently it’s an image of a barrage balloon, but I can’t find it anywhere and would love to have seen it.

One or two classics have been illustrated.

Along with this one, which I’ve never seen before but rather like.

It would have been nice to have known the artist, or whatever other information is in that small print, but of course they’re not telling.

Plenty more other gems are almost certainly lurking in the catalogue, but I simply don’t have the whole day or more that it would take me to try and track down every single poster they mention. This one is definitely on offer.

As are a whole heap of fuel economy Bateman posters (at least eleven, spread seemingly at random among six different lots), along with a Fougasse on the same theme.

There are plenty of other fuel economy posters in there too; not all, however, are classics.

There are also two more lots of the Beverley Pick ATS recruiting posters which were pointed out to me in the last auction.

I’d like to be able to tell you what those fetched in the last sale, but, frustratingly, the Wallis and Wallis website doesn’t even have results on it so I can’t.

I’ll post about Pick again one of these days, as I’ve dug out more of his/her war posters, and they’re all good. And if anyone has any more information about their work in the meantime, I’d love to know.

Death, Sheep and Lemonade

designers

I promised you Barbara Jones, and Barbara Jones you shall have. I’ve always liked her work, which began when we picked up this book in a second-hand shop quite a few years ago now.

Not only is it a very fetching cow, but it also reminds me of County Shows, which are some of my favourite things in the world. I’m off to the Bath and West later this week, and will be looking out for bemused-looking animals with rosettes in her honour. Here is the sheep from the back cover.

And one of the more delicate line drawings from the inside – this is Leadenhall Market decorated for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

But the more that I find out about her, the more I am discovering that the (very many) book covers and illustrations are just one part of what she did. Every biography I have found of her (on Wikipedia, or this rather good illustrated catalogue by Ash Rare Books) makes the point that the vast majority of her work was ephemeral and has disappeared. She studied mural design at the Royal College of Art, and her work appeared on liners – here is a sketch for a very ‘popular arts’ trompe l’oeil mural for the Tavern Bar of the S.S. Orsova.

as well as working for the 1947 Britain Can Make It exhibition.

A striking tableaux in the toys section illustrating the famous Birthday Nursery Rhyme, from monday’s child ‘fair of face’ sitting before a dressing-table, through the days of the week to Sunday’s child ‘blithe and bonny and good and gay’ rightly put in a glass case out of reach of an every-day little boy who resents such perfection. Murals by Barbara Jones, figures by Hugh Skillen.

She also designed murals for the Festival of Britain. None survive, but here are her illustrations of the Festival being built in 1950.

And, apparently, she also designed sets for The Woodentops. How much more influential can you be?

But even despite that, I think perhaps her most important legacy was in ways of seeing. The Festival of Britain poster which I posted a couple of weeks ago, was for an exhibition that she curated as well as designed.

And after I’d posted it, Mr Crownfolio came and plonked this on my desk (which had apparently been on the shelves all this time, unbeknownst to me).

She collected, wrote and illustrated the book in a rather wonderfully understated Gothic fashion.

While the book itself wanders over everything from Aboriginal mourning rituals to modern graves for pets, passing through poetry, floral tribute, anthropology and etiquette on the way. The result is a very modern kind of book, where the pictures are working alongside the words rather than just illustrating them – I can’t recommend it too highly.

But in terms of what she achieved with her work, the fly-leaf gives as good a description as any.

Before it was generally fashionable to enjoy the decorative and amusing objects produced by popular art, Barbara Jones was already studying them and collecting them, and she did much for them when she put on the exhibition called ‘Black Eyes and Lemonade’ during the Festival of Britain. Miss Jones’ house in Hampstead, full of curious and delightful things, is a vivid illustration of her impatience with the chastity of conventional ‘good taste’ and her feeling for invention, fantasy and vitality wherever it may be found.

I wonder what became of her house? They should have preserved it for the nation.

Do you think that’s it behind her?

Should you feel the need to campaign for something to be preserved though, the last remaining one of her murals has just been put forward for a listing order. It’s a mural of Adam and Eve done for a (Basil Spence -designed) secondary school in Sheffield. The school is being demolished, but the Twentieth Century Society are campaigning for the mural to be reused in the new school. I hope they succeed – more details here.

And if you want to know even more, there’s a book – A Snapper Up of Unconsidered Trifles: A Tribute to Barbara Jones which I haven’t read., but if it has more than three pictures in it will definitely be worth the price of admission.

Or, if you want the real deal, this is available from Books and Things. Take your pick.

Going dutch

Uncategorized

It was the Van Sabben poster auction on Saturday. As usual, there weren’t too many British posters there, but this time those few were mostly of very high quality – and ones that don’t often turn up – so it’s worth taking a look at.

To start with, there were five Abram Games. This RAMC Parachute poster made the most, at €600 (approx £508), despite being my least favourite by quite some distance.

I would much rather have had this one, for a mere £386-sih.

Clearly someone who was very interested in sending telegrams to ships was selling their collection too, as there was this 1947 Rothholz (a bargainous £183)

And a 1949 Pat Keely on the same subject which went for just £122.

As well as yet another Games – probably the nicest of the three, and quite cheery for him.

That went for £355, since you ask.

But the highlights of the sale for me were three Zero posters. The starter is this lovely Central line extension poster from 1946, which made just over £200.

But that’s not the main attraction. This fantastic WW2 Ministry of Food poster

would have been covetable enough on its own, but it came with its sibling too.

Together they went for £560, which is actually very reasonable for posters of this quality – especially ones which don’t tend to come up at auction much. We didn’t buy anything in the end, but I now wish we’d tried a bit harder with these two; we might never get the chance again.

Just to stop this blog being too insular, it is also worth remembering that the auction had hundreds of very lovely foreign posters for sale too. Van Sabben quite often have a fair quantity of Dick Bruna for sale. This auction had just a few, but this one, advertising childrens’ book week, is rather fun, especially just for £91.

I also rather like this image by Kees Kelfkens, which I’ve seen come up before and went for £142.

But then I am always a sucker for a nicely drawn cat. Especially one from 1958.

Even though the sale’s over, it’s still worth taking a look at the catalogue, as Van Sabben offer ‘aftersales’ – i.e. a chance to buy anything which didn’t go at auction. So it’s still possible to get a 1943 Pat Keely for just over £100, should you so desire.

But don’t spend all your money now. The Onslows’ sale comes up in just a few weeks time – more news on that when the catalogue appears.

Whitsun greetings

other

Have a lovely and I hope sunny Bank Holiday. I’m off to be a pirate for the day.

(With thanks to Edward McKnight Kauffer (1938), Oscar Berger (1940) and the LT archive…)

Behind the scenes in the museum

exhibitions, London Transport

Now, I promise, the last word on London Transport reproductions. The discussion has rumbled on in the comments for a bit, but the big guns have now been called in to settle it.

vintage london transport poster imperial war museum austin cooper 1932
Imperial War Museum, Austin Cooper, 1932

This email is from Oliver Green, former Head Curator and Research Fellow of the London Transport Museum and so, more than anyone, the man who knows.

I think there’s some confusion in this discussion between a reprint and a reproduction, though LT may not always have been consistent about this.

An R in the print number would normally indicate a reprint, not a reproduction, and was carried out by the original printers using the original plates.

A reproduction would be a poster produced from a new photographic copy of one of the original printed copies. London Transport has been doing this since the 1960s, but mainly with posters from the pre-war period. As they were reproduced for sale, not display on the system, they are always smaller than the original standard 40 x 25 in double royal format used on the Underground.

Reprinting did not happen very often, although there have been a few exceptions like the famous Tate Gallery poster by Fine White Line which has gone through numerous editions since it first appeared in 1986.

There have also been very few attempts to go back to the original artwork to produce a new lithographic poster. Again there is the famous exception of the Kauffer poster for the Natural History Museum which he designed in 1939 but was never printed because of the outbreak of war.

McKnight Kauffer Natural History Museum 1939/1974 London Transport poster
Natural History Museum, McKnight Kauffer, 1939/1974

The artwork was rediscovered by LT in 1974 and reproduced as a poster for the system in 1975. It is a moot point whether this counts as an original or a reproduction since a printed copy did not exist in Kauffer’s day.

Many thanks to Oliver for that, although I think that LT themselves haven’t been exactly contributing to the clarity. They clearly did have a rare outbreak of reprinting in 1971 or thereabouts, producing the posters which stirred up this debate in the first place, but which they then labelled as reproductions in socking great black letters, confusing us all unduly. But now I understand.

Tom Eckersley Art for All London Transport exhibition poster 1949
Tom Eckersley, original Art for All exhibition poster, 1949

From all of which, two other things. One is that Oliver Green has contributed an essay to the book which accompanies the Art for All Yale exhibition which I mentioned last week. This, Art for All: British Posters for Transport has now arrived at Crownfolio HQ and I have to say is rather good, both readable and fact-filled. Perhaps the highlight for me (and probably almost no one else) is that they have reproduced this advertisement, from Modern Publicity.

I once saw a poster of this for sale on eBay and didn’t buy it, which I’ve regretted ever since, as it answers one of my ever-present questions, which is why do more London Transport and railway posters still exist these days? Clearly, the answer is because they were selling them as well as pasting them on the walls of the tube. Pleasingly, the book tells me all about this – and how the railway companies held exhibitions of their posters as well. Plus I have learnt lots about lithography, which can only be a good thing.

Vintage London Transport Poster natural history museum Tatum 1956
Natural History Museum, Edwin Tatum, 1956. In Yale collection

There’s lots more to like in the book too – including a complete catalogue of Yale’s poster holdings, which are much more modern than I expected, and which means that Mr Crownfolio and I own more than ten posters which are also in the Yale Center for British Art. Whereas I don’t suppose anyone can say that about their Constables, so hurrah for the world-wide democracy of posters.

But also, in searching out the McKnight Kauffer that Oliver Green referred to, I discovered a whole wealth of museum posters in the LT archives, including some really wonderful ones which I’d never seen before.

Smoke Abatement Exhibition Science Museum Poster, Beath 1936
Smoke Abatement Exhibition, Beath 1936

And then also one or two that I did.

Edward Wadsworth South Kensington Museums poster 1936
Edward Wadsworth, South Kensington Museums, 1936

The very first time I wandered in to the old Rennie’s shop off Lamb’s Conduit Street, this Edward Wadsworth poster for the South Kensington Museums was on the wall. I’d come in there quite by accident, wandering past, not even knowing that it was possible to buy old posters, but I fell in love with it. I’d like to say that this was entirely because I recognised it as a great piece of design, but the fact that I’d worked in the South Ken museumopolis, and that the blue was a perfect match for my sitting room wall colour also had quite a lot to do with it.

But it cost hundreds of pounds. I can’t remember exactly how many, but enough to seem like an awful lot then, So I spent several weeks in a state of indecision, coming back to visit it a couple of times. And then, finally, I didn’t buy it.

Which was, of course, a terrible mistake. Never mind the value and the fact that I couldn’t even think about affording it now, it’s a beautiful poster, and would have looked wonderful on my walls for all of these years in between.

Here, just to rub salt into the wounds, is its companion.

Edward Wadsworth London transport posters South Kensington Museums
Edward Wadsworth, South Kensington Museums, 1936

Sigh.

A shilling life

designers

I was going to write at length about Barbara Jones this week, but I have a sore throat and no childcare, so it will have to wait.

Instead, either as compensation or to whet your appetite, have this.

The Shell Shilling Guide to Berkshire, cover design by Barbara Jones.

It’s easy to think of the various Shell County artworks as having been produced entirely for the purposes of posters (particularly should you happen to write a blog about posters). But the illustrations and text were also advertisements and, of course, these rather lovely glove-box sized guides. Here’s the whole thing across the front and back (although the artworks are cropped top and bottom to fit them onto the guides).

I am particularly liking the pig.

According to the guides themselves, the advertisements came first. But in some ways these little guides, sold in petrol stations and designed to be used rather than just collected on a bookshelf, are the most satisfying. Each Shilling Guide manages to cram in a short essay, a map, a list of stately homes and other sites open to the public, a gazetteer of some of the county’s chief places and a bibliography into just twenty pages, along with some evocative photographs.

I’ve never thought of Berkshire as bleak before, but I may have to change my view.

And that’s what I love most about these guides. They’re not written by a committee; they’re not interested in received opinion. Instead they point out modern factories, rare flowers, folklore and literary references with equal abandon, not just describing places but making them seem more interesting. They don’t insult your intelligence (imagine gettting a Further Reading list today), and they are fascinated by local distinctiveness, whether that’s in geology, buildings, traditions, or just the kind of people who live in a county.

Of course, they do owe a lot to the larger Shell Guides, but I think their eccentricity is even more radical for being available for just a shilling over the counter in villages and towns all over Britain.

Here are a few more, by Keith Grant, John Nash and David Gentleman respectively. Imagine if modern guidebooks came with covers as good as this.

If you want to know more, there is a short overview of the Shilling Guides here and an interesting essay on the motivations behind Shell Guides generally here.

But perhaps the best news of all is that these are really affordable collectables, going for between £1-4 on eBay, a bit more at a second-hand bookshop. Why on earth don’t I have all 48?