Daphne Padden Archives - Page 3 of 8

Informative

Today’s post is crowdsourcing, Quad Royal style, because lots of very kind people have been sending me links to posters on sale or sold recently. So the least I can do, of course, is share them.

The first, and following on nicely from my last post, is this Daphne Padden poster for British Railways, which is up for sale in America via eBay.

It’s a great poster, and one that I have never ever seen before and can’t find much trace of either, apart from the fact that one sold in the Midlands about three years ago. Despite all that, and an attempt at a frame, the price seems a bit steep to me at £300+ for a starting bid. But thank you to Mike Jacob for putting that my way nonetheless.

Also forthcoming, and emailed to me by Mr Crownfolio upstairs, is a Christies poster sale. But don’t get too excited, this is an Olympic special, and there are very few Olympic posters I can get enthusiastic about, with this Richard Beck from 1956 perhaps the only exception.

Richard Beck 1956 Olympic poster
Richard Beck, 1956, est £800-1,200

And I definitely don’t want to buy an Olympic torch (there are a surprising number on offer too). Given that, there isn’t a great deal else to report from the catalogue. All I can point you towards are a handful of McKnight Kauffer’s.

McKnight Kauffer, 1937. est. £700-900

The one below has to be my favourite, although this is less a result of the image than the estimate.

Edward McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954) ENO'S "FRUIT SALT" lithograph in colours, 1925,
McKnight Kauffer, 1925, est. £1,200 – 1,800

We got another one of this series on eBay about eighteen months ago, only for a small fraction of what Christies thinks it is worth, an experience which never fails to please me. And it’s a nicer image, to boot.

There is also a classic Abram Games.

Abram Games, 1941, est. £2,000 – 3,000

Along with this Peter Roberson, which I am guessing only slips through Christies minimum lot requirements thanks to the Festival of Britain interest.

Peter Roberson (1907-1989) VISITOR'S LONDON, FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN lithograph in colours, 1950
Peter Roberson, 1950, est. £1,200 – 1,600

My favourite British poster is probably this obscure and slightly pallid Victor Pasmore.

Victor Pasmore, 1948, est. £600 – 800

Note the use of British in the sentence above. Because once again, the local talent is having to compete for my attention with a small but lovely set of David Klein posters.

David Klein, 1960, est. £800 – 1,200

David Klein, 1958, est. £800 – 1,200

That first one in particular is fabulous, if a touch unaffordable.

The bad news is not just the small selection of posters I want to look at either. As far as I can tell from Christies’ Calendar, this will be their only poster sale this spring. And eBay’s gone into the doldrums too. There’s nothing left for it, I may have to start trawling the railwayana catalogues to keep my hopes up.

There are still a few glimmerings in the provincial auction scene as well, although I might have to get my act together a bit in reporting them to you. James Manning pointed out that Dreweatts have been selling more Percy Drake Brookshaws in a recent sale.

Now I say more because one of my first ever posts on here was about some of his posters being sold at the same auction house. Both then and now they seem to have come from the artist’s family, who have clearly been disposing of what they have in dribs and drabs. And also saving the best stuff until last.

What’s most amusing about these lots is the discrepancy between the estimates and the results. I would have been very happy to get the poster above for the £50-60 that Dreweatt’s estimated. Sadly it went for £550. Although perhaps not sadly, given that I missed the sale.

That wasn’t a freak occurrence either, all the posters reached similarly high prices. The boat race poster below was estimated at £100-150, but sold for almost ten times that, £1,100.

While this classic would have been the bargain of the century at its £60-80 estimate.

But it too went for £1,100.

I swear I will never ever fully understand the poster market. Prices like that make me think that the internet is doing its job in flattening out the market, as anyone with an interest and a tiny bit of understanding of searches on websites can find almost any lot up for sale and bid on it. But why doesn’t that work with eBay then? Why can we buy a McKnight Kauffer on there for a tenth of its Christies price? I think we might need to write a specialist piece of poster market theory, so if there is an economist in the house, can they get in touch? And for anyone else, please do keep sending the auction links and anything else that takes your fancy, they’re very much appreciated.

General Entertainments – no lemon!

designers

As promised, some more of the Daphne Padden designs that she left to Oxfam.

In many ways, having seen the first batch, there are no great surprises here as the range – everything from posters to packaging design – is very similar. But it’s still very interesting. For example, I had no idea that she did this packaging design, which does look vaguely familiar to me.

There’s plenty more of this kind of thing too – her work really did extend from poster design into packaging as well as the fifties went into the sixties.

There are loads more quirky little things too. Who would have known that she had designed this early 1950s catalogue without seeing this design?

And I had no idea that she had done this Holiday Haunts cover either. The seagulls are familiar too, I seem to remember them from one of her P&O menu designs.

Although now I go back and look they have definitely put on their glad rags for cruising.

While I’m on the subject, there are also one or two more nice designs for menus in there in addition to the one at the top.

Once again, only the most assiduous combing through ephemera fairs and eBay would ever have brought this to light.

But there’s more to what remains than just a joyous skipping through unseen designs (although let’s be honest, that’s fun). I’m also beginning to learn a bit about her design processes from what remains. At least I think I am.

It looks as though the first step was a rough sketch. She might have prepared a good handful of these, and I wonder if they sometimes got shown to a client, at least a client she trusted.

I love the dog on this, but I don’t think this design ever got printed, more’s the pity – at least this is the only version I’ve ever seen.

Sometimes, particularly in the early days of her career, I think she would work up these small sketches as detailed pen and ink drawings to show her clients. Here’s one for her Wales poster which was in the collection that we bought. Note the delightful sheep nestling on the ‘L’.

Then I think if the design was commissioned she produced a near full-sized collage. Here’s one for what I am guessing is a fabric pattern.

This is what I believe went to the printers, and if they ever came back from that inky place possibly went to the client. What is certainly the case is that none of these have turned up in either archive for a commissioned design. So my guess is that all the ones that she kept were, for one reason or another, never produced. Perhaps she was keeping them in case they came in handy later.

For some of her more complex designs (which I tend to assume are earlier although I couldn’t prove that), she also used ink along with the collage, as is the case with this splendid cheeseboard.

There’s lots more, but I am going to end with a question. I’m guessing that this sketch is for a coach poster.

It feels curiously familiar, but I can’t find the actual poster it refers to, just this one.

Was it ever produced or not, or am I just getting the two confused – does anyone out there know?

Bunny’s Dinner

archives, designers

Now here’s something I never ever thought I’d see. Daphne Padden’s sketch book from when she was just six years old.

Note period detail of LMR coal truck below.

This would be a fantastic thing on its own, but what it means is that some more of Daphne Padden’s archive has turned up (with many thanks to Dan from Modernish who put it and me in touch).

I’ll post some more of it next week, when I’ve had a chance to get my thoughts together, but here is a taster for now.

Anyone seen Animal and Zoo magazine before? I haven’t.

But with all of these designs was also a stack of art and design magazines, including some lovely Graphis Annuals, and then these – a selection of little Art and Industry magazines from the early 1940s until late 1950s.

And yes, that cover is by Tom Eckersley.

Now it’s not a complete run and the magazines are tatty, but they are interesting in part because they’re tatty – the notes at each top corner are Daphne Padden’s own indexing system.

I would also imagine that these wartime editions have to be quite rare too, as I doubt that many were printed in the first place.

These – along with the rest of the stuff – have been left to Oxfam who now have a duty as a charity to maximise the value of the bequest. The Graphis magazines will probably go on eBay, but if anyone wanted to make a generous offer for the Art & Industry heap, let me know and I will pass it on. Otherwise they will probably go to an auction.

Without linen on backside

eBay, Uncategorized

At last. I’ve been banging on about PosterConnection’s shop on eBay for quite a while now – its selection is enough to persuade me to be interested in foreign posters every so often. Now, finally, they are also selling some British designs. And good ones too. Pick of the pops has to be this Daphne Padden.

They are asking about £250 for it, and I can’t work out whether that’s a reasonable price or not. This is mainly because the last time I saw one of these going past an auction was at the final Morphets sale, where the prices were definitely depressed by the sheer quantity of what was on offer. What is this worth? Do any of you lot know?

A few other British posters are on offer, of which my favourite is this poster by Harry Stevens from 1960.

Once again, there is also the chance to see Britain from the foreign point of view. Which can be quite different, because I definitely don’t remember Manchester ever looking like this. With the possible exception of the air colour, that is.

But I do rather like this cricketing lion.

He could almost be by Royston Cooper, but in fact he’s the work of one Host Buzas in 1960. Good show.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering about the title, that’s how all of these posters are described.

There’s good stuff elsewhere on eBay too at the moment. Perhaps most urgently, I need to point you at this Abram Games poster, which is a lovely joyful one without bullets or dead people or blood in it. I know that’s not his fault, he was working for the Army so it was part of the job description, but I do find the results quite hard work sometimes.

The bloke who is selling this had the experience which I can only dream of; they bought a new house and found a whole roll of these posters up in the attic. They’re in very good condition too. I know this for certain because we’ve already bought one, and very lovely it is too.

While we’re on the subject of attic finds, you might want to watch the Antiques Roadshow on Sunday, because a Scottish woman brought in fifteen Keep Calm and Carry On posters – story here, and indeed everywhere else. This brings the total known to exist to somewhere round about twenty and they are apparently worth £1,000 each; although how they’ve worked that out when no one has ever auctioned one before and the rip-offs are plastering the internet like bad grafitti I don’t know. And if they say on the show – as I am pretty sure they will judging by the news story – that they were produced for use in the event of invasion when this is not true I will shout at the television. So there.

Rant over, back to eBay. A couple of posters we are probably not going to buy are these two Festival of Britain designs. They are wonderful, but their prices are already soaring into the stratosphere with a couple of days to go.

Festival of Britain is such a lovely searchable term, isn’t it.

For those of us without a bottomless wallet there is both this Amstutz, from 1967 (the sellers has a number of other GPO posters but I can’t quite get excited about them).

And then this psychedelic oddity.

They’re both being sold abroad, so might not go for that much.

Finally, this is not a poster, but might be of interest to one or two of you.

I’d like to be able to draw just like that. Now off you go, I’ve got a television to shout at.

Posters past

eBay

A while ago I posted, as did many other people, about the ghost posters of Notting Hill Gate, thanks to the wonderful photos taken by Mike Ashworth.

In the late 1950s, this tunnel, which ran between different lines at Notting Hill Gate tube station, was replaced by escalators and sealed up. What remained there for more than 60 years was a fantastic set of posters, a glimpse into what was really being advertised at the time.

What’s particularly fascinating is that they’re not all good. Of course there are some classics like Daphne Padden’s poster for Royal Blue coaches, but some of them are frankly quite average. Dial FLE 5000 for the Evening News.

The reason I’m reminding you about this is that a similar set of posters – only this time not stuck to any walls – have just been sold on eBay. There are seven of them, and it really does look like the contents of a pile given to the poster hangers at the start of the day.

Once again, there are some lovely pieces of design – my favourite is probably this Victor Galbraith image.

The LT Museum dates that to 1959, and my guess is that they are all from about the same period.

So far, all so wonderful, but there are also some decidedly average ones.

Some which can only be described as looking like newspaper ads magnified.

Along with a couple which aren’t even that interesting.

I have no idea where the set have come from, but I’m going to ask, so if I find out more I will let you know.

But they’re not just interesting as a cross-section, they also tell me, at least, something new.

All of these posters are 20″ x 30″, so Double Crown size, which was the standard advertising format of the period (if you want a full explanation of imperial poster sizes, Tom Eckersley will be your guide) Which is what you’d probably expect, given that, just like today, all kinds of companies advertised on the Tube network.

But two of the posters are for institutions – British Railways and London Transport – who usually used the 40″ x 25″ Double Royal poster for their advertising. That’s the size that posters on railway stations and on the outside of Tube stations always were, and that’s the size that most railway and London Transport posters are when they survive – take a look at any auction if you don’t believe me.

Except here we have two posters, one for the railways and one for London Transport itself, which don’t fit that format and instead have been designed to sit amongst all the other commercial advertising. Which surprised me, as I’d never really thought that they ever produced posters in this format.

Of course it makes complete sense when you do think about it, especially for London Transport who must have printed at least some Double Crown posters just to fill in any gaps which appeared in their commercial advertising spaces. Victor Galbraith’s elephant is probably doing that job on the tunnel walls above.

And even a cursory search on his name in the London Transport Museum archives produces other designs in a Double Crown size too, so while they might have been uncommon, they weren’t entirely unusual. Here’s another one from 1959.

But that BR and London Transport produced these posters is also not surprising because this point, the late 1950s, is the final heyday of the poster. This was an advertising medium of such importance that even British Railways, with its own poster sites in its own poster sizes, couldn’t afford not to be part of it. This wouldn’t last though, within a few years commercial television would have ended the dominance of the poster forever.

My Victor Galbraith search also brings up this wonderful bird, who is a Double Royal this time.

I wonder how the decisions were made as to which posters were chosen for which sizes. That, like so many other things, is something to find out more about one of these days. Unless there’s someone out there who knows already.

Tag: Daphne Padden

Float Or Fly

Informative

General Entertainments – no lemon!

Bunny’s Dinner

Without linen on backside

Posters past