Tag: Harry Stevens

Thick and Thin

posters

This has been hanging around on the bookshelves for a bit, waiting to find a home.

Royston Cooper vintage coach poster lounging on bookshelves

Which is quite a tricky problem as I can’t exactly roll it up as it’s on card.  Fortunately I’m starting to quite like it where it is; it may be there for a while.

The design is by Royston Cooper and dates, according to Christies at least, from 1960.  Until the long one turned up on eBay, I’d only ever known the image in its upright form.

Royston Cooper Thames Valley flower coach poster in portrait form

But I think I prefer it reclining.  Here’s the whole thing for your delectation, and to enable you to consider just how little a coach trip from Worcester to Slough in 1960 would be as much fun as the poster.

Royston Cooper Thames Valley coach vintage poster in landscape long thin

All of which made me think about long thin posters.  Partly only so that I could post this, which is one of my favourite posters ever.

Atoms at Work vintage 1950s poster Sheffield Atomic Energy Authority

The entire 1950s encapsulated in a fifteen inch long piece of paper.  Genius.

Mr Crownfolio remembers that the seller told him this was produced for the Sheffield buses, but other  long thin posters turn up in a couple of places.

For example, the GPO produced strip posters for their vans.  At  51″ long, they were almost like till rolls and I’ve only ever seen them on the BPMA site.  Which makes this Austin Cooper, at a mere 6″ x 20″, a bit of a mystery.

Austin Cooper Vintage GPO poster Telegraph less 1944

It dates from 1944 so perhaps they were fixed to bicycles rather than vans.  Or something.

London Transport were the other home of strangely shaped posters, like this 1974 Harry Stevens that I think may have been meant for display on a bus stop.

Harry Stevens bus stop litter poster business man 1974

And this Eckersley from 1960 which the LT Museum site call a panel poster.

Tom Eckersley London Transport Panel Poster 1960 Lost Property

Which were meant for both buses and tubes, it seems.

Panel posters were produced for display in Underground car interiors, as well as on the inside and outside of buses and trams. Because they did not have to fit a standard frame or wall space, they are smaller than other poster formats and vary slightly in size.

And I imagine that because so many were pasted on, only a few survive.  That’s a shame really, because in many ways they are very manageable posters, much easier to find space for than some of their bigger cousins.  At least I hope that’s true, because we’ve bought another two from the seller of the Cooper, by Studio Seven and Lander this time.  More on those when they arrive.

History coaching

other

Happy New Year.  I’ve had flu, so Quad Royal will be easing itself gently into 2011 for the next week or two.

Today, I will be mostly reminding you about this.

BBC coach golden age image

A coach.  Which is advertising The Golden Age of Coach Travel on BBC4 tonight (full details here if you want to know more).

I have no idea whether there will be posters or not, but I will be watching intently, just in case they show something of this ilk.

Daphne Padden coach poster vikinds

Or indeed this.

Royston Cooper vintage coach poster

And yes, this does make me a bit nerdy, but what the heck.  This may be the year to embrace my inner nerd.

Should these posters whet your appetite, a few have appeared on eBay too.  For example this Daphne Padden.

Daphne Padden vintage coach poster on eBay

Or a Harry Stevens.

Harry Stevens vintage coach poster on eBay

And even a Royston Cooper.

Royston Cooper vintage coach poster roundel

They’re all on offer from the same seller, and all currently at reasonable prices, although with a week to go, this may change.  Once again I suspect someone churning some Morphets’ purchases, but obviously this is just a theory rather than any hard facts.

December 11th

other

We’re still travelling early, we’re still shopping early.  And, above all, we’re definitely posting early.

Harry Stevens Post early vintage GPO poster 1960

This is by Harry Stevens from 1960.  Very good it is too, but I would just like to raise one point of order.  The pipe.  This isn’t a P.C. objection to the glamourisation of smoking, but a serious technical question.  How on earth would a snowman smoke a pipe without melting?  Answers on a postcard please.

A more serious question is why Harry Stevens isn’t more highly thought of these days.  He did a lot of stuff for both the GPO and London Transport, and he appears as often as Games or Eckersley in the annuals of the time.  But he’s not much collected now.  I’ll have answers to that conundrum too,while I’m at it.  If anyone has an idea.

Leave your Paddens here

other

I spy with my little eye…

Torquay and Paignton Daphne Padden poster from Elephant and Monkey

…some Daphne Padden posters for sale.  And I’m rather pleased about it as her work really does deserve more attention and acclaim than it has got so far.

The one above is being sold by Elephant and Monkey for £95, but Fears and Kahn have this (for a somewhat more taxing £475).

Daphne Padden luggage coach poster from fears and Kahn

While Present and Correct have all of these,

Daphne Padden reindeer coach poster 1964 Present and Correct Daphne Padden lion savings bank poster Present And Correct

Daphne Padden knights coach hire poster Present and Correct

at prices ranging from £135 – £175.  Which is a lot more of her work than I have ever seen on sale before – and at interestingly variable prices too; it’s still perhaps a bit early to judge what her real market value is yet.

Now while I would like to read this entirely as the start of the Daphne Padden revival, that is of course just a small part of what’s happening here.  These bright and punchy 1960s graphics have been starting to surface for a couple of years now – mainly due to the efforts of shops like Fears and Kahn.

But the real story is, of course, Morphets.  The vast slew of 1960s and 70s posters that were released at their July sale is now working its way into the dealers.  Because all of these people aren’t just selling Daphne Padden, they’re also selling a whole heap of other coach and rail posters along with them.  So Elephant and Monkey have Royston Cooper and Harry Stevens.

Royston Cooper bus to airport poster from Elephant and Monkey

Harry Stevens vintage coach poster from Elephant and Monkey

Fears and Kahn have this splendid stag.

New forest stag coach poster from Fears and Kahn

And Present and Correct can offer this rather good rendition of a family tree.

Family tree vintage coach poster Present and Correct

In each case there are plenty more where that came from on the websites too, small and large, cheap and expensive.  But, at my guess, almost all originating from Morphets.  The only one I know wasn’t in the sale was the Daphne Padden lion and mouse – but I am happy to be corrected if anyone out there knows better.

What will be interesting to see is whether this  lasts.  Did the Morphets sale release a flood of stock onto the market which will come and then disappear because no one else preserved these posters?  Or will the high prices entice more of these graphics out of their hiding places and up for sale?   I’d love there to be more, but I’m not really optimistic that they are out there to be sold.  We shall see.

Properly Designed Posters Please

posters

Today, a wallow in some lovely designs for no good reason at all

I’ve been meaning to write about the Post Office’s ‘Properly Packed Parcels Please’ series for ages, ever since finding them praised in Design Magazine.

Properly Packed Parcels Please vintage GPO poster woman out of hat

There’s a whole series of these posters (they seem to stretch from 1962 until the early 70s), and what I like about them is that they’re still trying to do great modern poster design at a time when most other institutions have more or less given up.

Perhaps the most arresting are this psychedelic series from about 1967-8.

Properly Packed Parcels Please Tom Bund poster 1967

Paul Rennie has the first one down as being by Negus Sharland; ours (hence the rather grim photos, apologies as usual) are signed either Tom Bund or Bund/Negus and Negus, so go figure.

Properly Packed Parcels Please tom bund 1968

Unfortunately I don’t know enough about the organisation of British advertising and design in the 1960s to be able to shed much light on this.  However, a bit of light Googling has told me that Tom Bund is alive and working, so I’ve dropped him a line and perhaps he can help.

There were also some more cartooony designs by Andre Amstutz and Harry Stevens in 1965 and 1963 respectively (from the BPMA catalogues).

Andre Amstutz Properly Packed Parcels Please GPO 1965

Harry Stevens GPO parcels poster 1963

But I do have to confess to a slight pleasure that we’ve got a few of these posters that the BPMA don’t (I know it’s mean, but they’re a museum, and we’re not, so it’s not something I can often do).  They do have this 1968 one by George Karo.

G B Karo vintage GPO poster properly packed parcels

But not this, from the same year.

George Karo {Properly Packed Parcels please GPO poster

And just in case you’re wondering why people need so much telling about packing their parcels properly, an earlier, 1952 poster by Karo gives us an insight into the strange things that the British public get up to with their postal service.

Karo soft fruit by post genius GPO poster

Remember, fruit juice may cause serious damage to the mails.  Now there’s a lesson to take away with you for the weekend.

Guardian writer bien informée

archives

I’ve been overtaken by events over the last few days, which has eaten into my thinking and posting time more than I would have liked.  Fortunately, Sam Leith in today’s Guardian has been writing intelligently about posters, so that I don’t have to.  His points about the decline of lithography and the absence of concept apply to more than just political posters.

He’s using the newly revamped and re-opened People’s History Museum in Manchester for the posters which prove his point.  They do have an excellent digitised archive too, so you can wander through their collections and draw your own conclusions.  The images, however, are still a bit ropey.  Here’s one poster I liked, a touch green perhaps.

vintage green potato harvest poster

But the other Civil Defence one above actually comes from our own collection, as their image from the same series was more of a collection of pixels than anything else.  But I’m sure that’s just teething problems.

(And yes, I know, our images aren’t that great either.  We only took them as mug shots for our own reference, not having any idea that they might end up out there on the web.  So apologies if a) they are less than orthogonal, and b) you see more of our floor that you might strictly wish to.)

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the web, you can buy  this:

femme bien informee london transport poster

Possibly the only time you are going to see the words Harry Stevens and Art in the same sentence.  There on the other hand, it is only £9.99 at the moment.  On eBay of course.