GPO poster Archives - Page 2 of 14

So here I am submerged in house renovations when there are poster auctions which I need to tell you about. First in the line, mainly because it’s in just a few days time, is the forthcoming Swann Auction of Modernist Posters.

Now, with their being in New York, there are usually only one or two items of interest for us in a Swann auction, things like this, which although wonderful are somewhat outside the Quad Royal remit.

Allner, est. $1,500-2,000

Matter, 1938, est. $2,000-3000

There are also a set of Theyre Lee-Elliott posters for the embryonic British Airways.

All three are from 1938 and estimated at $800-1,200. While we’re on the subject of British Airways, there is also this, which is apparently a very early example of photography in an airline poster.

Anonymous, c.1938, est. $800-1,200

If only flying were so glamorous now.

The main reason we’re here, however, is lots 185-222 which are, in the main, from the collection of F H K Henrion. There is one piece of his own work.

F H K Henrion, 1943, est. $600-900

But what’s really going on is Henrion looking at the work of his fellow designers. So there are examples from Reginald Mount, Pat Keely, Hans Schleger, Eckersley and many others – so many that I can’t include all of the ones I like.

Reginald Mount, 1944, est. $600-900

Pat Keely, 1941, est. $400-600

Hans Schleger, 1940, est. $400-600

As well as a substantial selection of Abram Games’ designs; I don’t know if they were friends or whether Henrion was a particular admirer of his work.

Abram Games, 1941, est. $2,000-3,000

Abram Games, 1945, est. $700-1,000

Abram Games, 1955, est. $2,000-3,000

I’ve even found a rare example of an Ashley Havinden poster.

Ashley Havinden, 1950, est. $400-600

Not everything is by a big name, either. This very striking wartime image is simply by A.R., about whom I can tell you nothing.

A.R., 1941, est. $500-750

Henrion clearly never stopped looking at posters and thinking about them as long as he worked, because there are a host of later examples too.

So I strongly suggest you go over there and take a peek, not only for the insight into a designer looking, but also because Swann’s catalogues are properly written and informative.

Manfred Reiss, 1955, est. $400-600

And now if you’ll excuse me, I have to order a skip.

String Theory

other, posters

This has recently arrived in the post, contradicting my previous assertion on here that there are no more eBay bargains to be had.

Admittedly it is not an outstanding piece of graphic design history (although I quite like it) and is rather battered round the edges too. But it’s by Lander, which is always a good thing, and it’s also a rather intriguing bit of social history. Because it’s a reminder of the days when things had brown labels and were tied up with string, or in this case cord.

Nobody does that any more, do they? I have sometimes been known to wrap a parcel up in brown paper, but I don’t think I’ve ever tied it up with string. This is something I’m sure that my mother could do though, coming as she does from an age before jiffy bags and sellotape.

Without all these modern parcel technologies, it was clearly possible to wrap a parcel very badly. At least that’s the only conclusion I can arrive at from the sheer volume of posters that the GPO put out on the subjects. Most of these are quite general, and I’ve written about the Properly Packed Parcels series on here before. But there were plenty of other similar exhortations too, and here’s just one.

Actually, seeing as it’s Tom Eckersley, let’s have two.

Judging from the posters though, (these are all from between 1950 and 1953) there was a Post Office standard approved way of packing parcels carefully.

So that’s two pieces of string round the long side, one round the other, although I still have no idea how to knot it. Hans Unger, meanwhile, is even more specific about rigid boxes and string in 1950.

This one, though, is the most instructional I have managed to find (it’s artwork by the way, artist not known).

I think even I could have had a go at the process now, although I still don’t know how to knot the string.

Of course (and you might have guessed that the whole post has been leading up to this) the real challenge that faced the Post Office was blackberries. Sent in a non-approved fashion.

Did people really send them in a basket? And expect them to get there? I am boggled at that thought. But the GPO weren’t, they produced more than one poster, which means that it must have happened at least twice…

The GPO weren’t alone though, British Railways also had problems with parcel packing and addressing.

The problems might have been similar but it has to be said, the GPO’s poster design was infinitely superior.

You also get the feeling from their posters that they don’t actually like parcels that much. They’re just trouble really, when your main business is really running trains.

That, incidentally is apparently a late Frank Newbould from 1960, It’s also quite mild in tone compared to some.

But nothing gave them an excuse like the war. At last they could say what they really thought.

Can you even send a parcel by railway now? Probably only if it is tied up with string.

Is Your Letterbox Efficient?

auctions

I was just thinking that it had all gone very quiet on the auction front, when what should come along but a whole auction full of posters at Bloomsbury.

It’s an interesting hotch-potch with almost every form of poster you can think of represented in the mix. So there’s foreign posters and railway posters.

Raymond Piper, est. £200-400

Alongside ski posters and London Transport posters.

James Fitton, 1937, est. £200-300

Hans Unger, 1972, est. £200-300

I’ve never seen that Unger before, although it’s not, in my book, one of his best. The pricing is a bit, well, interesting as I can’t see that the Unger and the Fitton are in any way comparable in quality, but according to the estimates, they are.

In addtion, there are plenty of poster types that have been mentioned on here before, such as David Klein posters and aeroplane posters with lots of blue skies in them.

Note the increasing prices for David Klein; had I had the foresight and money to buy some a few years ago, I would be thoroughly quids in. But I didn’t, and anyway, I would only have wanted to keep them.

David Klein, 1958, est. £1,400-1,800

Lewitt-Hi, 1948, est. £150-250.

Another poster that I keep mentioning on here is this McKnight Kauffer from 1938.

McKnight Kauffer, 1938, est. £140-180

As ever, it turns up with the matching Pat Keely.

Pat Keely, 1938, est. £140-180

My theory about this – and I have said this before but I think it’s worth repeating – is that these posters come up so often because they were deliberately saved. They were, I believe, the first propaganda posters issued by the government in advance of World War Two. So they were a novelty, and also a harbinger of a great event that I am sure quite a lot of people could see coming. So, if the chance arose, they saved them for posterity, or the grandchildren, or for all the other reasons that make people keep otherwise insignificant pieces of paper.

Move forward two years and the whole British population is drowning in slogans and propaganda, coming at them from newspapers, leaflets and the radio, as well as from posters. So the last thing they want to do is keep one as a reminder. In any case, there are so many, which one to choose? So the latter posters survive in dribs and drabs, mostly saved by accident. But these first ones, people knew they were important and they kept them.

Fortunately, not everything in the auction is something seen before. This, for example, has to be one of the least obvious posters ever.

Anonymous, c. 1960, est. £200-400

Artist not known, but more than that I have no idea what it is on about either. Nor, it appears, does Bloomsbury. Any ideas anyone?

Most exciting, for me at least, are these.

Tom Eckersley, est. £150-200

This is just one of five, yes count ’em, five sets of GPO posters, each with ten posters in them. Including, in this lot, a reminder of what a good designer Harry Stevens is at his best.

Harry Stevens, 1951, est. £150-200

I would bid on them, but judging from our last experience with the Dorrit Dekk lots, these will go for a lot more than the estimates.

Aitchison, est. £150-200

And I’m not surprised. This values them at £15-20 a poster; I reckon they’d go for more than that on eBay. Although I don’t, to be fair, know what the other posters are, they may all be dogs of the first order.

Bromfield, 1951, est. £150-200

We’ve emailed Bloomsbury to ask what they are, and when we get an answer, I’ll let you know.

Love and money

auctions, eBay

A proper post is brewing and will follow tomorrow, but this is just a brief appearance to let you know that all your Valentines poster needs are solved.

I’ve mentioned this Dorrit Dekk poster before, and now it has appeared on eBay, not once but twice. It ought to go really, it’s just the kind of thing that would sell for a lot more in the right kind of shop, even if it is mounted on some kind of board.

While we’re on the subject of eBay, can I also just remind you that the Quad Royal Daphne Padden prints are also now available on that esteemed shopping site.

They’re very competitively priced, especially when compared with this little gem.

The auction has ended, but until last week it has been on offer for £1,350. A figure which completely boggled my mind because in the auction at which we bought the Eckersley last week, a copy of this went for, I think, about £300.

Now normally, I would laugh and point, saying that this hasn’t even been restored and how much do you expect me to pay for a frame? But that’s not going to work here. For one thing, the auction has been ended because the item is no longer available, which I suspect means they have sold it. More tellingly than that, they received a Best Offer on it of £1,200. Really, truly I do wish I had the sheer gall to be a dealer. I’d make a fortune. But I have no such ability in me, so you’re all safe.

All of which means that I can make no comment on their one remaining poster, except to say that if you would like to buy this Norman Wilkinson poster for £1,850, you know where you can go.

Meanwhile, for those of us without the best part of two grand burning a hole in their pockets, this National Savings poster of Shipping through the Ages currently has no bids at just £3.99.

Or this slightly more appealing example of the National Savings genre could be yours for £6.99

Or we could all just give up and collect thimbles.

To Sheffield, by dachshund

exhibitions

Whatever I was expecting to find in the Guardian yesterday, it certainly wasn’t this.

But thank heavens for the quiet of the New Year, because it allowed them to give almost a whole page to an exhibition in Sheffield of the works of none other than Leonard Beaumont.

Sadly – at least from my point of view – it is not going to be wall-to wall GPO dog illustration. But it’s still very interesting. The exhibition concentrates on Beaumont’s lino etchings – he donated over 80 pieces of work to the Sheffield Art Gallery just before his death.

They’re fantastic bits of Art Deco/Vorticist design, but all the more impressive because it seems that Beaumont was almost entirely self-taught, Working at the Sheffield Telegraph, he produced the prints in the evenings. By 1936, he’d moved to London and stopped making them.

So that’s the exhibition, but. at least from a Quad Royal perspective that’s where the story gets interesting. Because in London he joined Mather and Crowther as a commercial designer, and also worked freelance, producing (according to an interview in the Sheffield Star in 1983) wrappers for Nestle chocolate, posters and stamps for the post office, along with – and this was a surprise to me – the cover for the Festival of Britain catalogue.

Pretty much all I have known of his posters to date, and all the ones I have ever featured on here, have been for the GPO.

Now according to all of the articles, he then went off to Sainsburys in 1950 to sort out their corporate identity, and stayed there until he retired. That he worked for them is certain (here’s Shelf Appeal on his work there). But he was still producing posters for the GPO during the 1950s too – the last one above dates from 1957, and the example below from 1958.

He also produced one of my favourite mad GPO posters ever.

As one of the articles notes, it’s the use of type which distinguishes his work. To which I would also add the use of collaged photos and graphics together. For a self taught man, he was a very adept modernist.

Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that I can make a very confident prediction that I will be turning up in Sheffield at some point in 2013. The exhibition runs until September, so there’s plenty of time to make that come true.

Tag: GPO poster

Postal Art

Designer’s eye

String Theory

Is Your Letterbox Efficient?

Love and money

To Sheffield, by dachshund