railway poster Archives - Page 4 of 16

Superlative, he says

auctions

Watch out, there are auctions about. Admittedly not the poster extravaganzas which are Christies and Van Sabben, but auctions nonetheless. First under the microscope is GWRA in Leamington on May 19th. This is a railwayana auction which means that there is an awful lot of this kind of thing.

Vintage Railway Poster British Railways `Bath The Georgian City - Travel By Train` by Watkiss
Chris Watkiss, 1952

Along with even more of this kind of thing too.

$Vintage Railway Poster, `Ilfracombe - On Glorious Devon`s Ocean Coast` by Harry Riley$
Harry Riley, 1957

Harry Riley, 1960

Like all railwayana auctions there are, infuriatingly, no estimates whatsoever. But the catalogue compiler does seem to have been getting a bit enthusiastic. The top poster, for example is ‘arguably the best of” all Bath posters, while the bottom one is ‘ one of the best seaside posters from the 1950’s’. While,. the posters are quite nice, I could still have an argument with both of those statements but can’t work up the energy today. Please go right ahead if you would like to.

In amongst the hyperbole, though, one or two items worthy of note. My opening offer to you is a somewhat grubby Eckersley.

Tom Eckersley, 1961

This is in slightly better condition and will probably fetch a lot less in Leamington Spa than it would have done at Christies or Sotherans.

Leonard, n/d

While this one I just love.

PG, 1961

That has to be worth a punt of someone’s money, doesn’t it?

Meanwhile, in Norwich can I present the auction with the longest and most convoluted title ever:

Tinplate and Diecast Toys, Rare Early Documents and Newspaper Editions, Railwayana, Posters, Uniforms, Silver and Watches.

The auctioneers are James and Sons, and it takes place on May 5th.

In amongst that heterogeneous selection of, well, stuff, there is one little gem, by Hans Schleger, aka Zero.

Hans Schleger, 1960s, est. £30-40

I like that a great deal. It’s pretty much the only interesting poster they have, although I am starting to develop a sneaking affection for this one too.

Hasler, 1960, est. £25 – 50.

What makes it worth more than the Zero, though, I do not know. Do you?

Informative

auctions, Uncategorized

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.

Runabout

designers

Mr Crownfolio has been diversifying into ephemera again. But I can’t really complain when it’s as good as this. And anyway, we haven’t had a nice Eckersley on the blog for a while.

But this isn’t some niche piece of design for a high-end firm. What we have here is a popular leaflet produced by a giant nationalised industry. I can’t think of anyone working in a similar way today. Which is more than a shame, to me that represents a loss of respect for other people – respect for their intelligence and taste, but also a respect in terms of making the world better looking rather than uglier. And that’s quite something to lose.

Meet Mr Poster

eBay

There has definitely been a change in eBay over the last few years, at least in terms of the poster market. When we first started watching it, most of what was up for sale wasn’t either of much quality or of much value. Think National Savings and posters which had been damaged beyond all reasonable repair. And quite often both.

Nowadays, though, it’s very different out there. What’s on offer can sometimes look more like a sample from a specialist poster auction than the scrapings from someone’s attic, although admittedly you don’t get to look at pictures of so many people’s floors in a proper auction.

It’s one of those weeks this week. So you could have a Guinness poster.

Or a high quality film poster by none other than James Fitton.

Although with a starting bid of £250, I shan’t be buying it. As the posters on offer edge up to auction quality, it seems the prices are doing the same. I’m less impressed with that, however inevitable it is.

For a £99.99 opening offer, you might also have this period railway poster, featuring a man with wonderfully spivvy dress sense.

Extra points for standing on the poster while you’re taking the photograph there.

You might also be interested in this gem (starting price £80) which is one of my favourite railways posters that we don’t own. Yet.

I spent several of my teenage years travelling in and out of Manchester Piccadilly for gigs, nightclubs and hanging around in shops without buying anything, so it has a great nostalgic appeal. Although I don’t remember the architecture looking quite that optimistic or even interesting after a couple of decades of unsympathetic adaptation and Mancunian smoke.

If it’s London Transport posters you are after, there is this bus stop poster by Harry Stevens. Again.

This keeps coming up, everywhere from eBay to Sotherans, and has probably been mentioned on here more times than any other single poster. I have no idea why there are quite so many of them about. Were they distributed to every London school child for the Silver Jubilee or something? Or were they just very easy to steal from bus stops? If anyone has a clue, please do share.

But all is not lost, some corners of eBay are just as they ever were. Would you like a 1960s RoSPA poster?

Please say you would. Because I’ve got a whole tube full of these to put up for sale one of these days, although probably with a starting price of less than £9.99.

There’s also still space for the oddities too, like this man in France who is mostly selling a vast array of posters about safety out on the airport apron which is really worth looking at just for curiosity value alone. The collection includes this British Airways safety poster, yours for the grand sum of €2.

My favourite, however, is this Air France one, also €2 if you fancy it.

Finally, there are the things that are more likely to come up in a junk shop or ephemera fair than an auction house, like a large set of BBC Schools leaflets or a Dorrit Dekk menu.

These reassure me. I’m really pleased it isn’t all tidied up and auction-like yet on eBay; life would be much duller if it were, and I wouldn’t know quite how many people had beige carpets. And we’d hardly be able to afford any posters at all ever. So long may it carry on like this.

Be prepared

auctions

Hurrah, an auction. It’s about time we had a nice chunky set of British posters for sale, and it’s Bloomsbury Auctions who are obliging this time, on the 16th February.

Once again, there are incalculable quantities of airline posters. Where do they all come from? I don’t remember them being in auctions a few years ago, and suddenly they are omnipresent.

Lewitt Him, 1948, est £300-500

Lewitt Him, 1950, est. £400-600

Well, there are at least six. Some of them are indeed the usual Lewitt-Him AOA designs, but there are also other designers working for other airlines for a change. This one is by Willy de Majo, who deserves a post all of his own one day.

Willy de Majo, 1948, est. £600-800

My favourite of them all is probably this Schleger design for BEA, which I don’t remember ever having seen before now.

Hans Schleger, est. £700-900

It’s also reminded me that when I wrote about these wide blue skies in the airline posters the other day, I left something out, something I only realised last week when I was thinking about the afterlife of surrealism in graphic design.

Anon, 1948, est. £350-450

Because as well as being a remaking of wartime skies and vapour trails, these clear skies with their spotting of clouds are also the heavens across which surrealist visions drift.

Beverley Pick, est £500-700

Certainly Schleger’s airline skies aren’t much different to his pre-war dreams; it’s just different kinds of flying I suppose. Maybe it did seem unreal to get to places so quickly, I don’t know.

Laurence Fish, est. £200-400

Apart from the airlines, I can also offer you the undervalued dose of kitsch above, along with a neat Lander and a John Burningham that every household should own.

R M Lander, est, £ 150-250

John Burningham, 1964, est £100-150

Beyond that the posters that most appeal to me are, strangely enough, mostly pre-war. Mind you, who could resist this.

Anon, est. £200-400

While the idea of ‘J B Priestley’s England’ is one which hasn’t really lasted, making this poster an interesting curio.

Austin Cooper, est. £150-250

These two, meanwhile, are just quaintly likeable.

D M Earnshaw, 1938, est. £100-150

Freda Lingstrom, 1930, est. £200-300

None of which, though, really adds up to much other than some posters which I enjoy but probably won’t buy, along with a couple of interestingly low valuations on one or two lots. I shall be particularly interested to see what happens to the Burningham and Whitley Bay posters when they come up.

There are also a very few posters on offer at Dominic Winter’s auction tomorrow, but they do include one or two interesting wartime and pre-war ones. This Abram Games falls, like so many of his wartime posters, into the category of admirable but I wouldn’t want to have it on my wall.

Abram Games, 1943, est. £300-500

Then there is this McKnight Kauffer ARP poster.

McKNight Kauffer vintage propaganda poster ARP 1938
Edward McKnight Kauffer, 1938, est. £200-300

We have a smaller version of this and I was considering it the other day, because it is an odd one.

Although I quite like it as a piece of graphic design (enough to have the air pellet holes removed and get it framed, so a fair bit of like), I’m not sure it’s successful as a poster. But then it does have an almost impossible task to fulfill. The design dates from 1938, so just before the war; it needs to make people aware that there is a need for them to do something, but at the same time it can’t spell out the detail of what might happen and frighten people (“you will all be bombed in your beds and die without ARP, so there”). So it ends up being a bit vague and ineffectual; perhaps they thought that people would have read the papers and would be able to fill in the details themselves, or maybe they just wanted to be woolly at this stage, I don’t know.

Dominic Winter are also selling an ARP poster by Pat Keely in the same sale, and I’m not sure his design is much more convincing.

Pat Keely, 1938, est. £200-300

What do you reckon?

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.