John Bainbridge Archives

See London

auctions

Onwards and upwards then, onwards and upwards. Which today means London Transport Auctions, whose next auction is on November 1st.

As ever, along with the opportunity to buy a conductor’s hat or the radiator grille from a Routemaster, there are also a fair number of posters, some of them being rather good. Really rather good – I would quite happily buy any or all of the posters on today’s blog, the only exception being the one we already own. So this is going to be a relatively straightforward scoot through what’s taken my fancy, with the posters being allowed to speak for themselves. For a change.

As I’ve been mentioning John Bainbridge quite recently, shall we start with him?

John Bainbridge, 1953, est. £75-90

John Bainbridge, 1956, est. £40-60

And look, we have not only dates but proper estimates too from these lovely people. Although the estimates, even allowing for some edge wear, do seem quite conservative, so it will be interesting to see what these actually go for. I’m less likely to live with a royalist guardsman, but I’d happily pay £60 for Dick Turpin any day.

There are a couple more posters from the same year as the second Bainbridge, both excellent, which makes me wonder if someone went on a buying spree that year, and the results have just emerged from the attic.

Hans Unger, 1956, est. £75-100

F H K Henrion, 1956, est. £75-100

I have, briefly, written about this Henrion series before, but they deserve some more attention really, for being both insane and at the same time very, very ahead of their time. But now is not the moment.

And that’s not the end of the 1950s classics either; there are also these two to take into consideration.

Victor Galbraith, 1959, est. £75-100

Sheila Robinson, 1953, est. £70-90

Or if you fancy something smaller, there is this Harry Stevens bus poster for the Lord Mayor’s Show.

Harry Stevens, 1959, est. £50-100

On a price per square inch value (I’m estimating here, I haven’t actually worked it out) I don’t think that Stevens is worth that much more than Unger – or indeed than most of the posters I’ve already mentioned above. But, as ever, I am quite prepared to be proved wrong.

Now I do tend to prefer post-war graphics but I’m not leaving out the earlier posters from the sale, it’s just that there really are very few of them in comparison. There are one or two wartime ones, of which this Bruce Angrave blackout poster is probably my favourite.

Bruce Angrave, 1942, est. £75-125.

Plus there is also this rather lovely little 1938 bus poster, but I’m sure I like it because it’s not so much of the thirties as pointing the way forward to the Festival of Britain styles of the early fifties.

Harry Blacker, 1938, est. £75-125

Apparently after being a designer before the war, Blacker gained fame in the 1960s as a cartoonist, particularly for the Jewish Chronicle. But he did a number of posters, so I will keep an eye out for him.

Meanwhile, these were issued in the early 50s, but aesthetically are a product of the decade before.

Anon, 1951, est. £60-75

And obviously, you need two, because no man would become a bus conductor if the poster were addressed to women, or vice versa, would they.

There are, as ever, more posters, so do go over and have a look at their catalogue. Meanwhile, I will be back next week with the Christies auction, and, possibly, some more thoughts too.

Going Postal

other, posters

The blog has been a little bit overlooked lately. Apologies for that, I’ve had a rather urgent appointment with some wallpaper that needed to be removed. It’s been a bad time to be distracted as well, because people – well the readers of this blog to be precise – have been sending me things. And they’ve been rather good.

Let’s start with these, mostly because I asked for them. ‘Did Daphne Padden design any other leaflets for British Railways?’, I asked the other day. The answer is a resounding yes.

And here’s another, although I’ll be blowed if I have any idea what a ‘Radio Cruise’ is. Can anyone enlighten me?

She even designed the insides of this one too.

Which include this rather fine map.

Are there more out there? I hope so, although I am anticipating that I might have to do something frightening, like attend a transport ephemera fair, to find them.

Meanwhile through the actual mail box came a small set of these little London Transport prints – I’m sure there is a precise art historical word for what they are but I’m afraid I don’t know it. Anyway, they were a fantastic gift all the way from America so thank you very much.

What I got was four little folders, each containing a small print of a London Transport poster from 1953. Here’s St James’ Palace by David Lewis.

Each print was the pictorial half of a pair poster, so making the transfer to prints quite well. I can’t decide whether my favourite is the John Bainbridge or the Sheila Robinson (both artists who deserve further notice on this blog one day).

I have no idea, however, what the purpose of these were. Were they bought by the public and framed, or where they sent out by London Transport as a form of publicity? Or some other reason that I can’t even guess at. If anyone can enlighten me, please do.

While we’re on the subject of London Transport, this is also rather good.

This also reminds me that I’ve been meaning to mention the work of artist Micah Wright for a while. He’s been working on ironic modern versions of propaganda posters for a while, and got in contact with the blog to say that we might like this take on Pat Keely. He was right.

Most of what he does is American in origin, but it’s still very much worth taking a look at his PropagandaRemix website.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a wall that needs demolishing. But if you’ve got anything else to send me in the meantime, please feel free.

Float Or Fly

Posters Produce Results

auctions

No arguing with that, is there.

Cecilia Murphy, 1932, est. $1,700-2,000

Although for today’s post, the results we are mostly bothered about come from auctions, as all at once there is a rush of new sales on the horizon and I can hardly keep up.

That poster above is included in Poster Auction International’s May 6 sale in New York. There isn’t a great deal else of British interest there, except to say that it’s always good to see something by Ashley Havinden.

Ashley Havinden, 1932, est $2,000-2,500

I’m also going to make one of my periodic exemptions for things foreign, mainly because this exhibition poster by Max Bill is just an extraordinary piece of design for 1945.

USA Baut. 1945 MAX BILL (1908-1994) vintage exhibition poster
Max Bill, 1945, est. $800-1,000

It still looks modern now, so back then it must have seemed like a visitation from the future.

Other than that, there is what looks like a chance to buy the complete works of Alphonse Mucha, but if you’ve got enough money to do that – estimates go as high as $90,000 – you’re probably not reading this blog for advice on posters.

There’s a bit more to detain the rest of us at the forthcoming Van Sabben auction on April 21st, although most of it comes from the well-trodden paths of airline advertising, wartime and post-war propaganda posters and the London Underground.

Having said that, even these can deliver a few surprises, the greatest of which is probably this Beaumont. In fact more of a fright than a surprise really; Mr Crownfolio is very worried that someone has beheaded their mum and put her in the cabbage patch.

Beaumont vintage propaganda poster 1950 cabbages
Leonard Beaumont, 1950, est. €120-400

Even at the top end, that estimate seems fairly reasonable when you consider that the lot also includes three other posters of the same ilk, all dating, I think, from after the war.

On a similar theme is this poster, although with the added bonus of an interestingly menacing tone.

Anonymous, 1946, est. €80-160

Once again, there is a slew of airline posters, many of which have featured on this blog before. Of those, the most desirable is probably this Abram Games.

Abram Games, 1949, est. €650-1,000

But there are a few novelties here too. This is one.

Glad, 1949, est €150-280.

I have never come across Glad before, but it’s really rather good, so if anyone can knows more, please do let me know.

The second is by John Bainbridge, about whom I do know more and have been meaning to post about for some time, because he is both excellent and not well enough known.

John Bainbridge, 1949, est. €150-250

Although he worked in Britain for much of his career, John Bainbridge was originally from Australia, and there is a really good archive of his work over there, which I must post about one day.

There aren’t many London Transport posters for once, but those few are quite unusual. This first one can only be from the 1930s.

Roy Meldrum, 1933, est. € 300-600.

Van Sabben also have the poster below dated to 1935, which seemed a bit odd to me. And a brief delve into the LT Museum site gives a date of 1950 instead, as well as confirming that it is one half of a pair poster.

James Arnold, 1950, est. €120-250.

Again, this looks like quite a bargain, as it also gets you this S John Woods poster from the same year as well.

Oddly, the other half of the farms pair poster is also on sale, but in a different lot.

James Arnold, 1950, est. €100

I’m no completist when it comes to pair posters – would you ever really put the other half up on the wall? So given the choice, I think I’d probably rather have the S John Woods instead.

As if all of that wasn’t enough for one day, Poster Connection also have a sale in San Francisco on 28th April. There are airline posters, and that’s probably all I need to say about it. But I did rather like this one.

Anonymous, 1948, est. $200-360.

But it’s not just the gaiety I like, it’s also a reminder of the huge gulf between Britain and America at this point. Britain was still enduring austerity, worse even than during the war, and this brightly coloured poster would have been an unimaginable luxury, depicting foreign travel which could only be dreamed off. Such stuff were for export only, as the country desperately tried to entice Americans over to spend their money, and so help pay off the war debt.

Edge wear

eBay

And still they keep c0ming. Today – cue drum roll – it’s eBay Watch. Along with a bit of complaining from me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got no problem with what’s out there. Because there’s loads of it.

Let’s start with this Aer Lingus poster, which is very stylish.

Although it’s in German it was printed in Ireland and is by Bainbridge. This is almost certainly the John Bainbridge whose London Transport poster I mentioned the other day (and about which more later).

Then there’s this lot.

They’re all by Beath, all from 1936 and they will cost you £49.50 a poster at the moment. I also think that they’re all rather good bits of modern typography.

But what pains me is that the descriptions say that they have all three been mounted on canvas. Now it may just be that they’ve been stored badly (that’ Mr Crownfolio’s theory) but even if that’s so, they’re in pretty poor condition for a mounted poster. I also can’t see any of the mount around the edges, which is a bit odd.

Now if these were the only examples, I wouldn’t be so bothered. But it’s happening elsewhere. The Henrion and Bainbridge posters that I mentioned yesterday also claim to be linen backed. But the Bainbridge in particular is in even worse condition – take a look at the edges.

And again, no edges of linen to be seen.

So what’s going on? Is there just an outbreak of fibbing on eBay? Or, more kindly, of sellers who haven’t seen a mounted poster before. Or is there someone doing cut-price poster mounting and not doing it very well? Or have I just got the wrong end of the stick altogether?

And finally, this.

My beef here is with the description:

On offer here is a beautiful original Percy Drake Brookshaw travel poster dating to the mid 20th century circa 1950’s.

Yes, it’s by Percy Drake Brookshaw, yes it’s original. But no, it is definitely not beautiful. Just look at it.

They (an eBay based antiques dealer in Chippenham) also want £200 for it, which is a bit steep considering that I distinctly remember it going for about £40-60 at auction earlier this year.

There ought to be large signs all over the relevant bits of eBay, warning people that just because a poster is old, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s valuable. The same applies to the Beaths above. £49.95 isn’t as much, but it’s still a lot when you think that we bought a similar (and in fact better because nicely mounted on linen and therefore flat) Beath Winter Number for just £7.99 only last year.

Right, enough complaining. On the positive side, you could have this smiley chap by Daphne Padden for a mere £4 or so at the moment.

As well as a ton of WW2 posters from this seller. They’re not the most visually appealing – this is probably the best of the bunch.

Once more, they’re not cheap,with opening prices from £50 for this, to £200 for a fairly tatty Norman Wilkinson. Perhaps I’ll come back to this post next week and see how they all fared.