WW2 poster Archives - Page 7 of 10

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.

It’s the economy, stupid

auctions

At least that’s my theory. I can’t account for the Onslows’s sale otherwise. More posters than usual didn’t sell, or didn’t make their reserves, and very few indeed made more than their estimate. It seems that after two weeks of hearing about nothing but austerity budgets and cost-cutting across the board, everyone is now too frightened to spend money on posters.

There were a few honourable exceptions. This World War Two poster reached £420, from an original estimate of £100-150.

I don’t quite know why; plenty of other wartime posters didn’t sell that well, or at all, and it’s not even a particular design classic – I prefer the idea of the Londoner’s Land Club (which I would join in a flash if it still existed) to the actual poster itself.

A few other categories did well – Munich Olympics posters, and a smattering of French things and old things that I can’t get too excited about. This Frank Sherwin poster also went for £20 over its £600 high estimate.

But many classic railway posters weren’t as popular as they might have been. Lots of Terence Cuneos and landscape Quad Royals were passed over. As was this delightful chap, from Studio Seven.

I’d have thought him irresistable, but not even cute can sell in a recession it seems.

Mind you, I can see why there might be a shortage of buyers here. After Morphets and Bloomsbury’s big railway poster sale in New York, I imagine quite a few collectors may have spent over their annual budget already. Or they may just have auction fatigue. I’m getting quite close to it, and I’ve hardly bought anything.

There were some exceptions to the general trend though. The Shell Educational Posters all did well, almost all of them selling at their £50-70 estimates.

Which is possibly surprising, because the set on eBay which I blogged about recently, have almost entirely failed to sell for £60 each. (Should you fancy a bargain, they’re now coming round again at a more enticing £39.99 each.)

Other than that, the strange rule of the poster world was once again proven, which is that original artworks are less valuable than the mass-produced reproductions that sprang from them. (Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr Benjamin). There were a whole set – nine in total – of Frank Newbould railway safety posters. Each one paired the poster with the artwork and one or more original design treatments.

You’d have thought it would be a museum or a collector’s dream; but none of them made their £150-200 estimate, and a few failed to sell altogether. I’d love to know where they came from.

Also of interest is that a selection of 1960s London Underground posters (like this 1963 Frank Dobson) almost entirely went for £55-60 each.

Which perhaps makes the estimates at the Morphets sale look more reasonable, a thought which quite perks me up. Perhaps I’d better go and order that truck then…

But if you fancy buying any posters in the meantime, Onslows will consider offers on any of the unsold lots, so take a look, there may be a bargain or two to be had.

Disclaimer: this is an entirely personal view and has probably missed lots of interesting prices out. Please feel free to point them out, or to suggest any other theories you may have about why auctions and prices are as they are.

Don’t Burn Your Shoes

auctions

I saw this poster at auction almost seven years ago now, but have never forgotten it.

This poster really brings home to me the Orwellian side of Britain during the Second World War, a place where posters are shouting at you about things you’ve never even thought of doing (I’d never worried about burning my shoes until I saw it, but perhaps I should have done).

What I always wonder about though, is what people felt about it at the time. Did they feel nagged or did they accept it as a necessary part of the war? Or did they just ignore it? I could, possibly, find out the answer to those questions, as there is some Mass Observation research on what people thought of the wartime posters. But to do so I’d need to travel down to Brighton, and I haven’t quite done that yet. I will one day, though – and then let you know.

More to the point of this post, ‘Don’t Burn Your Shoes’ was designed by Beverley Pick. As is this one, which, although not quite as shouty, gives you more of a feel for the colour and design.

They’re all from the Onslows’ auction in November 2003. Although we were there, it was very early on in our poster-collecting days, so I had no idea what things were worth, or even what I particularly liked. Which is why ‘Don’t Burn Your Shoes’ up there went for just £30 – and not to me.

This one went for just £10.

And there are more (and more and more).

With hindsight, I think the Beverley Pick archive was being sold off. There were at least thirty or more posters up for sale, and some duplicates. But after posting about Beverley Pick a few weeks ago, I thought it was worth bringing these posters into circulation, as quite a few of them aren’t illustrated anywhere else.

Sadly, I have not been able to find out a single thing more about Beverley Pick since I last posted. I can’t even bring you a picture. The best I can do is this.

Designer Mr Beverley Pick at work on drawing board. CU. His hand painting star on sketch of Regent Street. CU.

So at least I know he’s a man. He is, I believe, painting stars on the 1955 Christmas decorations for Oxford Street. But if you want to see his face, you’ll have to watch the Pathe News footage here. If anyone can improve on this, please do let me know.

Sepsis, fuel and dark beer

auctions

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, the Onslows catalogue is now up and complete – eighteen lovely pages of posters for you to look at it, and all of which you can bid for via the internet.

So with the sale less than two weeks away, I thought I’d better take a proper look.

If you are a fan of a) World War One and Two, b) Guinness or c) French posters, you’re in luck, as there’s plenty of all of those.

This Mount/Evans salvage poster is probably my favourite of the WW2 lots – and one I’ve never seen before as well. Large tranches of the rest – unless you like H.M. Bateman cartoons – are more of historical than graphic interest. Although, having said that, I rather like this railway fuel saving poster too.

As well as this fantastically stark warning – also from the railways.

At an estimate of £70-£100, I might even think about that, were it not for the fact that I’d never ever put it up on the wall.

Then (lots 246 – 250 should you be looking for them) there are a small cache of classics, including Henrion, Keeley and three by Abram Games.

Every one a classic, but all also sufficiently grim that I can’t see any of them going up around the house any time soon.

In the world of Guinness, meanwhile, there are a few Gilroy classics on offer, but I rather like this 1962 one by R Peppe, not just for being different, but it does help.

And after that, I just got a bit overwhelmed. There are film posters, London Transport posters – including this 1953 gem by Sheila Robinson.

We once sold a poster of hers once; with hindsight I have no idea why.

There’s also this 1964 design for Kew Gardens, which is by Tom Eckersley’s wife, Mary Kessel, poster trivia fans.

There are of course railway posters, including Terence Cuneo’s Pictures of Trains, lots of 1972 Munich Olympic posters about which I know nothing, and – as mentioned in my last post – industrial quantities of Shell educational posters, at least 22, although I might well have missed some. The Hillier is still the best one on offer, although I am also a big fan of the David Gentleman series on The Roads of Britain.

There’s at least one missing here – The Great West Road with his wonderful image of Silbury Hill – and quite possibly more, but they’re still a great set on a deeply under-rated subject. But I will not digress.

If your a fan of Kraftwerk, you might want to buy this.

And finally (because I am rambling furiously and must stop) I like this, for no good reason at all.

Surely that prize specimen has to be worth more than the £30-40 estimate.

This is of course a fantastically partial review of what’s on offer, and has almost certainly left out all the most valuable posters. So please do and take a look for yourselves, and I’ll come back once the auction’s over and see what I missed out first time around.

Great Northern Games

designers

Today, a public information broadcast for those of you in the North of England.

No, not that the London Underground is more efficient than trams. Rather, Abram Games : Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means is opening at the Dean Clough Crossley Gallery in Huddersfield (actually the gallery is in Halifax I am told, sorry about that) on Saturday.

This is a Design Museum touring exhibition, of posters, sketches, product designs and so on, and has to be well worth the price of admission, because it’s free. Rude not to if you ask me.

A couple of caveats though. One is not to look at the Dean Clough website if you want to find out about it, as there’s nothing there – I got the information about the exhibition from here instead.

And I also can’t promise you that any of these posters will be there; I’m afraid that I’ve just been pleasing myself and finding some less well known of his designs. But do let me know what they are showing if you do go.