Hans Unger Archives - Page 4 of 5

Friday Miscellany

eBay

Odds and ends from the internet today. Mostly because I wanted to post this.

Normally it lives on the shelf in Richard Hogg‘s studio. Lucky him.

You can buy some later Eckersley on eBay at the moment too.

We’ve got a copy of that already. But I can say with some certainty that it didn’t cost £100, which is its starting price.

There on the other hand, people seem to have come back to eBay after the summer holiday lull with high expectations of what their posters are worth.

Both this Unger

and this William Fenton reproduction (previously mentioned in despatches here)

are up with a starting price of £44.99.

But perhaps the seller isn’t deluded. Because this delightful John Burningham – also a reproduction – has just sold for £56.01.

The John Burningham book has arrived, by the way, and is an utter delight. So more on him next week. For now, a look at the proper version of the poster above to cheer you up on a dull Friday morning.

Perhaps I might even go on a country walk myself this weekend.

Kill All Flies

other, posters

It’s August, it’s the silly season. In Quad Royal world this means that I have a house full of people, a holiday to plan for and no time to write anything. Elsewhere, it manifests itself in the fact that news is so slack that posters have made an appearance on the BBC news website.

Wierdly, these have taken the form of a slideshow, with music. I know, it’s almost as though they’ve forgotten that television has been invented. But there are a few lovely posters on it. I’ve taken quite a shine the one above, mainly I suspect because it reminds me of a Macfisheries poster. And they’ve also included this rather entertainingly blunt Abram Games poster, which I’ve had on my ‘to post’ list for ages.

The reason for all of this is, apparently, the publication of a book on the subject by the WHO. It’s taken me some digging and delving to find anything about it, and then it turns out to have been published for a while now, so quite what is going on here I don’t know. But it’s called Public Health Campaigns: Getting the Message Across and is available on Amazon should you be interested.

While not many of the posters in the book would qualify as high design, the book does raise some interesting questions. The main one of which is, do posters work?

In the slideshow, Dr Laragh Gollogly argues that marketing posters can at least quantify their effectiveness by seeing whether sales rise or not (although that does remind me of the famous quote – ‘half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don’t know which half.’). But for posters which seek to influence what people do, there is no test at all.

How do we know what really works? There has been no systematic collection or evaluation of massive social marketing campaigns and indeed this book presents only a smattering of the total global output on the subject. Posters vary hugely from country to country and over time. By publishing this book WHO hopes to spur those involved or interested in public health care campaigns to stop and think critically. Which posters work and which don’t? How do we evaluate their effectiveness? Can a poster work on its own or does it need to be part of a much bigger approach to behavioural change? Although posters are getting flashier, are they getting better?

These are questions which don’t just apply to the posters in the book. How much did World War Two posters affect what people did or didn’t do? Did they even make people feel better or worse about what was being asked of them, from recycling to the blackout? I’d love to know.

The book itself is a bit frustrating, because it doesn’t give any context for the posters themselves, in terms of place or date, and even scratching through the acknowledgements at the end doesn’t help much. Although it did let me identify this Lewitt-Him for certain.

But this is also a reminder of just how difficult collecting and curating posters can be. There’s an interesting article on the Wellcome Library blog about this, as a spin-off from the book too. They also link to their own online catalogue, which includes many posters. But no pictures, which makes it simultaneously fascinating and deeply frustrating. I’ve been wondering for some time about Summer is here–and now extra cleanliness please. Issued by Danish Bacon Company Limited. It’s by Unger, it’s from the 1950s, and it’s probably not half as interesting as I imagine. But because I can’t see it, it’s now, in my head, the greatest poster ever. Still, and more importantly, I wonder if it did its job and prevented any cases of food poisoning? We may never know.

Too many auctions

auctions

Today, for a bit of light relief, I’m going to write about some auctions that aren’t Morphets (although, fear not, a normal service will return later this week).

To start with, Wallis and Wallis down in Lewes are selling yet more of their seemingly inexhaustible supply of World War Two propaganda posters.

I’m not going to go into much detail, partly because it’s much the same as the last three times, but mainly because the Wallis and Wallis website is so infuriating. Most of the posters aren’t illustrated at all, and I can’t find out what anything made at the previous sales because it simply won’t tell me.

They have at least photographed these three rather fine posters that I think are by Pat Keely. Mind you, I’ve had to conclude that from squinting at the signatures, because the descriptions are rather vague. But I like them, and haven’t seen them illustrated elsewhere.

I’m also minded to try and advance to Air Artificer as well. Any suggestions as to how?

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Swann Galleries are also having a poster sale.

A quick flick through the catalogue reinforces the point that Paul Rennie makes about his own collection in Modern British Posters,

British items were generally of little interest to international collectors and were, accordingly, less expensive to purchase

Fight your way through the swathes of American war posters and French Art Nouveau, but you still won’t find much from Britain here.

There are railway posters.

Of course there are railway posters. Although this set (lot 230), by Pat Keely for the Southern Region just before the outbreak of war, are more interesting than the average.

There are four in total, and they look even better en mass – a stylistic bridge between Art Deco and the simplifications of the post-war style. Worth a look.

There are also London Underground posters too. This is by Charles Burton, from 1930.

While this bus poster, by Fred Taylor, seems impossibly sleek and minimalist for 1923. It’s wonderful.

There’s some Hans Unger too, if all that’s a bit too pre-war for you.

It’s one half of a pair poster from 1957 and quite expensive at $400-600. We paid £130 for both halves not that long ago so let’s see what the Americans think it is worth.

Aside from the expected, there are also a few interesting odds and ends, like these BOAC posters for Earls Court Motor Shows. The first one is particularly good, and I’d love to know if anyone has any information on it.

There are also, not for the first time, dozens of American motivational posters. I’m rather intrigued by these, in a slightly horrified way. Were they the from the war or the depression? Were they produced by the government, or like educational posters, sold into workplaces? Does anyone know and can tell me?

But I rather like this one, although for all the wrong reasons.

It’s not just the libel against the Spanish, although that’s quite funny on its own; it’s also the fact that I think I’d have the siesta and the work-life balance of the Spaniard over the American motivational poster any day.

Finally, there’s this, which is here for no other reason than I like it very much indeed.

It’s like an Indian Daphne Padden. More of her stuff later this week, by the way.

Holiday Haunts

railway posters

Once again, I’m thinking about holidays. I actually have got round to booking the Crownfolios’ annual fortnight, but two things have brought my mind round to the subject again. Or to be precise, to Holiday Haunts. This was the railways’ annual guide to hotels, B&Bs, and other such places to stay in Britain, the idea being, of course, that you got there by train.

In the first place, the ever-attentive Mike Ashworth sent this over, pointing out that it was by Bruce Angrave.

Considering the date and the Art Deco style, it must have been one of the earliest things he did. Which is interesting enough on its own.

But it also, and unsurprisingly, got me thinking about Morphets, where a whole slew of Holiday Haunts material is for sale. Anyone fancy 20 volumes from the 50s and 60s for your shelves?

It’s lot 584 if you do.

Now, I know that we’re veering close to the dangerous territory of railway ephemera here, but bear with me. Can you see that Eckersley peeking out at the bottom left of that picture above? Well exactly. Here it is in full.

Now Holiday Haunts was a blockbuster publication. At the height of its success it sold over 200,000 copies a year, so covers like this, and indeed the Angrave above, would have meant modern design going into the homes of huge numbers of railway-travelling, seaside-holidaying people who perhaps wouldn’t have seen it otherwise. I hope they, or at least their dissident teenage children, liked it.

Because this is ephemera, I won’t go into too much detail but Holiday Haunts was originally created by the GWR in 1906,

reached its height in the 1920s and 30s,and was then continued by British Railways after nationalisation in 1947. And I am mostly telling you this because I have found this photo. It’s the 1930 edition of Holiday Haunts being printed at the old Butler and Tanner print works in Somerset.

These men were printing about 50 metres from where I am typing this now. I’d be able to see the building from my window, if they hadn’t taken the top two floors off when they converted it into flats. So, Holiday Haunts, printed right next door to Quad Royal. How about that.

But, in case you think me entirely lost to ephemera and local history, there is more purpose to this. Because designers like Eckersley and Games didn’t just design covers for Holiday Haunts, they also designed posters to advertise it. I’ve mentioned this Morphets lot already – there’s an Unger in there too.

Here’s a different version of the Eckersley poster, courtesy of VADS and the Eckersley archive.

But there were also carriage-print scale posters too (top right, below, again from Morphets).

But there’s more of an attraction for me in Holiday Haunts than just the great posters and the cover designs. It also evokes a nostalgia in me for a past I never had.

The kind of British seaside holiday where the sun shone every day and you could get tea in proper cups on the beach (I know this is true, I’ve seen it on railway posters). The kind of holiday where your family would stay in a camping coach. And like it.

(Riley, 1957, also on sale at Morphets. Isn’t everything.)

There are probably some clues in here about what posters – and particularly railway posters – mean today, and why they attract us so. Ah the past, when the countryside was prettier, things were simpler and people were happy anyway even if they did have to stay in a shed. Possibly, but also possibly not; there were just fewer consumer goods and people thought that a railway coach for 8 for a week was a form of luxury. Mind you, I’m off to stay in a mobile home on a French campsite. So perhaps holidays – and people – haven’t changed that much after all.

Throw a Coach Party

auctions

It’s here. The much anticipated Morphets everything-you-ever-wanted-to-own-from -the-sixties-and-seventies Malcolm Guest catalogue has arrived at The Saleroom and on their website.

Wales and Coach tours 2 vintage posters from morphets
Donald Smith, two posters for Hants and Dorset Coaches

My brain is going to take a while to absorb it all, especially in this heat – there are over a thousand lots, and with many of them multiples of between two and fifteen posters, I haven’t a clue how many posters are actually for sale. Really quite a lot I should think, and all I’ve been able to do is skim through them. So, for the moment, here are a few nice items chosen at random for your entertainment. And a few first thoughts too.

Bruce Angrave, Party Travel for 8 or more, vintage rail poster morphets sale
Bruce Angrave, Party Travel, British Railways poster

There are huge numbers of posters which I certainly have never come across at auction or illustrated before, from, the whimsical to the modern.

Longman Party Outings By Rail vintage railway poster from Morphets
Longman, Party Outings By Rail, British Railways

John Wright, Rail Rover Tickets, British Railways

And a few which seem to have fallen off the first sale, like this rather lovely bit of GWR modernism.

Ralph Mott Factories and Factory Sites, GWR

There are also a lot of coach posters in addition to the railway collection – well over three hundred.

Studio Seven, Hire a Coach

Karo/Jacques, Luxury Coach Tours; Send Your Parcels by Bus

But mostly it’s the sheer quantity of posters itself that I find overwhelming. I could – and probably will – do a whole post just about the Royston Coopers that they have, most of which I’ve never seen before.

I should also point out that, once again, the estimates are insanely low. That Royston Cooper is estimated at £50-100, as are the two Daphne Paddens below.

If even half the lots go for close to these estimates I will a) eat my hat and b) need a removal van to bring all of my purchases down from Harrogate.

It gets even madder when you start to look at the multiples.

Anyone fancy the Games, Eckersley and two Ungers above for £100 to £150? I do, but I also don’t rate my chances too highly on that.

A full appraisal will follow in due course, but it really is worth going to take a look yourself – and then please do come back and tell me what you think.

Horses, sorry, modernism for all

exhibitions

Crownfolio is thinking of going to France. Actually, I’ve been thinking about my holidays for some time, but now it looks as though I’m going to have to plan another trip as well, and all because of this exhibition.

It’s called Art for All, and it’s an exhibition of British transport posters at the Yale Center for British Art, which is a part of the University.

Now at first I found myself a bit surprised and bemused that Yale could be bothered to have a collection of transport posters (a bequest, apparently see below*). But then I look at something like this 1932 Newbould,

and realise that it’s not a million miles away from a Stubbs or a Gainsborough in its depiction of a very specific kind of horsey Britishness.

To be fair to them, though, the exhibition – or at least the collection of images that they’ve chosen to promote it – isn’t packed to the gills with landscapes and posh people. In fact, if anything, it’s more on the side of modernism. There’s plenty of McKnight Kauffer, and also these delightfully a-typical Newboulds from 1933 (I wonder if he got bored of fields, villages and market towns too).

The Jazz Age made incarnate by fish. You can’t beat that, can you. Or this Tom Purvis, with an unusually subtle colour-scheme.

I also like the fact that the curators don’t seem to believe that all good design evaporated after the Second World War. They’ve included this 1956 Unger,

As well as this even later – 1965 – Abram Games.

Even better, they’ve not just gone for name designers and known posters. Also included is this 1933 gem by Anna Katrina Zinkeisen.

All of these were part of the Henry S Hacker bequest to Yale. I think I rather like his taste.

So, if you are in the U.S., it would be worth quite a detour to see this lot – and more, there are over 100 in the show in total. The show runs from next week until August 15th, so you’ve got plenty of time. And if you do make it, I’d love to hear what it’s like.

If you’ve been wondering in the meantime why I’m thinking French thoughts, it’s because the exhibition transfers to the Musée de L’Imprimerie, Lyon, France: October 15, 2010–February 13, 2011. Which is slightly more accessible by Eurostar than Yale.

But if even that seems too daunting, there’s also a book – Art for All: British Posters for Transport (Yale Center for British Art). More on that when it arrives.

*Thanks to a very forgiving email from Henry Hacker himself, I now know that it isn’t a bequest, and that Henry Hacker is still very happily collecting posters. Which makes his gifts even more generous.