In search of some eye-catching imagery to boost morale surrounding US involvement in WWI, the US military commissioned the English-born photographer Arthur Mole and his assistant John Thomas to make a series of extraordinary group portraits. Between 1915 and 1921, with the dutiful help of thousands of servicemen and staff from various US military camps, the duo produced around thirty of the highly patriotic images, which Mole labelled “living photographs”.
Mole (1889-1983) was born in Lexden, a suburb of Colchester, Essex but when he was 14 years old his family emigrated to America, where he became a citizen. He became a commercial and portrait photographer, came up with the idea of human photographs. These required the construction of a tower for the camera to be placed on and then with a megaphone Mole and his assistant John Thomas would move the troops into picture formation.
Arthur Mole and John Thomas – The Human American Eagle, 12,500 Men
Arthur Mole and John Thomas – The Statue of Liberty, 18,000 Men
Arthur Mole and John Thomas – 27th Division Insignia, 10,000 Men
Arthur Mole and John Thomas – US Shield, 30,000 Men
Arthur Mole and John Thomas – Liberty Bell, 25,000 Men
Arthur Mole and John Thomas – WW1 Horse Memorial, 650 Men
Here are two more, I think they are by Mole, but I am not sure.
This is a book from 1964, of children playing on the streets. The photos are by Julia Trevelyan Oman and the text (designed to read like observed opinions) was by Bryan Stanley Johnson. The whole thing reminds me of the Mass Observation movement of the 1930s. It is curious to see the streets of what I can only assume is East London and the children looking happy enough finding ways to entertain themselves. It also brought to mind this video called Through the Hole in the Wall.
History is full of artists that made amazing works and were forgotten, often in the case of women artists they studied, worked and then ceased painting when they got married. I don’t know if this happened to Peggy Rutherford or not, but she is mentioned in various reports and papers in clippings and periodicals in the 1930s, most notably from Apollo Magazine in 1931 she was mentioned as deserving ‘special praise’ for her painting ‘The Purple Magnolia’. Rutherford had a studio flat in Fitzroy Street in London. From an artistic family her aunt was Maud Rutherford who married George Hall-Neale, both portrait painters.
Rutherford studied at the Grosvenor School Of Modern Art under Iain Macnab and alongside Rachel Reckitt and Suzanne Cooper. It is clear that she favoured flower paintings and many of the works here from the 30s have a strong Bloomsbury influence as well. The Grosvenor School was a private British art school and gave the country some of the best inter-war avant garde artists; they nurtured the talents of the some of the most talented women students, Suzanne Cooper, Rachel Reckitt, Alison Mckenzie, Sybil Andrews, Lill Tschudi, Ethel Spowers, Eveline Syme and Dorrit Black to name a few. Some like Rutherford have been less documented than others.
Peggy Rutherford exhibited at the Society of Women Artists, National Society of Painters, Sculptors & Printmakers, (1936) at the Royal Academy with a watercolour called ‘Flower-piece’ (1936). She is in the correspondence of John Piper, and lived at New Malden and Chelmsford.
In 1930, two couples, Henry & Irina Moore (married in 1929), and John Skeaping & Barbara Hepworth (married in 1925) holidayed together at Church Farm, Blacksmiths Lane, Happisburgh, on the Norfolk Coast. The holiday was intended as a working one and it was hoped the time in a new location might help Skeaping / Hepworth marriage, but it did not.
In 1931 Hepworth met Ben Nicholson and later invited him and his wife Winifred Roberts to join them on another trip with the letter below:
I enclose a photo of the farm – the colour is very lovely. The country is quite flat but for a little hill with a tall flint church and a lighthouse… The beach is a ribbon of palesand as far as the eye can see. The Moore’s and ourselves should be so pleased if you came… If you can get away the farm will be less full the first week we are there – 9 Sep – 16 Sep †
Winifred was looking after their three children (Jake, Kate and Andrew) and stayed with her family in Boothby, Cumbria, while Ben went to the farmhouse. The Skeaping / Hepworth marriage hadn’t resolved itself and divorce had been spoken of before the holiday, so at first John Skeaping stayed in London. On changing his mind to join his wife in Norfolk, he found she had fallen in love with Ben Nicholson. The next week into the holiday they were joined by Ivon Hitchens and Mary and Douglas Jenkins.
(left to right) Ivon Hitchens, Irina Moore, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Mary Jenkins, Happisburgh in Norfolk, 1931. Mary’s husband Douglas took the photograph.
Left: Ben Nicholson and Ivon Hitchens Right: Henry Moore carrying stone
Ben Nicholson with camera
Barbara Hepworth and Ivon Hitchens, by the Church Farm Gate, 1932
Skeaping divorced his wife in two years later. But it wasn’t until 1938 that the Nicholsons got a divorce. In 1932 Hepworth found herself pregnant with Nicholson’s issue, she gave birth to triplets: Rachel, Sarah, and Simon. This would mean Ben Nicholson was the father of six children by two women.
The rest of the photos are taken in 1932 and show the fashion for naked bathing and games. I am sure one day a scriptwriter will turn what must have been an emotionally tense holiday into a screenplay.
† A nest of gentle artists in the 1930s Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Ben Nicholson, 2009
Looking in magazines during the First World War, there were adverts from tailors to domestic products all taking on a patriotic flare, as well as appeals for money to help various charities. There isn’t a great deal to say about it all, other than it looks to be profiteering somehow. The child above in the Pears soap advert looks to be sitting on a coffin with wreaths, very odd.
As the years go on the adverts become a little bit more distressing, the advert for Pears’ Soap again just is bizarre, I can’t help but think of the mothers who couldn’t afford it and wondered if they were letting their sons down after they had been slaughtered.
Good-bye dear, off to get blown up by the Germans, You won’t forget to send me some Wright’s Coal Tar Soap.
The charity adverts here also seem remarkably bossy. Have you helped yet?
The Samaritan Free Hospital was for Women and they found themselves with less funding.
In 1964 Edward Bawden went to Dublin. It is not known if it was a commision for House & Garden or not, but regardless, he illustrated a tour of the city. The magazine follows with a historical account of each of the locations, but below I have scanned the images in for you all to see, as I doubt there are many editions surviving.
Last week, in a box outside a bookshop I found this book for a pound. It is the The Countrywoman’s Year, 1960. Paid for by the Women’s Institute, it is a curious book of crafts, recipes, instruction and advice on making wine, beekeeping, growing indoor plants and all the mumsey crafts of made-do-and-mend. Why it is singled out to appear on my blog? Because it is peppered with Eric Ravilious illustrations. I am unsure how, or why, but I would guess that the illustrations were in the sample books of the Curwen Press and in those days you had books of designs and devices used by the press, as well as typographic books too, a high class version of clipart.
The title page image is a thresholded image of Raviliouses design for Wedgwood’s Garden design. Appearing on a soup bowl, the print likely taken from the transfer plate would have been reversed as in the book.
The image below appears on the back of the contents is The Village, for the cover of a journal by the National Council of Social Science, 1933.
Below is a design for Wedgwood again, but this time for a Lemonade set in 1939. You can see how the image appeared on the jug when it was first released and how it looks without the enamel colouring over the top.
The baking kitchen scene is a December Headpiece to a calendar in The Twelve Months, by Nicholas Breton, ed. Brian Rhys and published by the Golden Cockerel Press, 1927. The image below of the dustpan is from the same book and is the headpiece for February.
The block below of pancakes in a pan is from the Kynoch Diary 1933 that Ravilious illustrated in 1932, it’s title is Block 122. The book is below.
Below is another block from the Kynoch Notebook, this time, Block 110
Kynoch Press, 1933 illustrated by Eric Ravilious.
The illustration for summer is a larger version of the title page image, and the illustration as previously seen for Wedgwood’s Garden plates.
The illustration by Eric Ravilious below was originally used for the Country Life Cookery Book, June, 1937.
The wood engraving below was a bit of a mystery, I thought it was Ravilious but it wasn’t in any of the reference books on him (Greenwood) and it was identified by David Wakefield as being a wood engraving for a Apple box label for the Ministry of Agriculture in 1934. In 2018 it was published in the ‘Eric Ravilious Scrapbooks‘.
For the chapter ‘Painting for Pleasure‘ uses part of the cover to the BBC Radio Talks Pamphlet on British Art. January 14th – February 18th, 1934.
Eric Ravilious – BBC Radio Talks Pamphlet on British Art, 1934
The wood-engraving used above can be seen below, called Two Cows and was used for the cover of a London Transport Walking and touring guide.
1936 cover to Country Walks, 3rd Series with a Ravilious Design of Two Cows.
Below you can see the work re-cycled into a watercolour also named Two Cows. Here keeping the study of a cow in the same pose and doubling it, both cows are the same tracing but coloured differently.
Eric Ravilious – Two Cows, 1936, The Fry Gallery
Above and below are both from the Country Life Cookery Book, July (above) and October (below), 1937.
The last little wood engraving was a projected design for a book plate but looks to illustrate a chocolate log and christmas pudding,
Eric Ravilious – Projected Bookplate, 1937
The editor of the book was Elizabeth Shirley Vaughan Paget, Marchioness of Anglesey, DBE, LVO, Shirley Morgan began her career in the Foreign Office as personal secretary to Gladwyn Jebb until her marriage to Lord Anglesey in 1949. As Marchioness of Anglesey, she served as President of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes 1966–1969, a board member of the British Council 1985–1995, chairman of the Broadcasting Complaints Commission 1987–1991, and vice-chairman of the Museums and Galleries Commission 1989–1996.
This is a short cartoon by Anthony Gross & Hector Hoppin from 1934. It is interesting to think about how Gross went on to become a war artist, and became famous for his etchings. But this short film is full of joy and the verve of the age. I added colour in places.
When the war broke out Anthony Gross, was working in Paris with Hector Hoppin on a cartoon animation of Around the World in 80 Days. With the help of Eric Kennington and Edward O’Rorke Dickey, Gross became a war artist in 1939. He travelled to Middle East, India, Burma and North West Europe. While Gross was working in his Cairo hotel room, he met Edward Bawden for the first time, Bawden had burst in, and said “What the hell are you doing here?”, he was under the misapprehension that Gross was there to replace him, but Gross was there to follow the 9th Army and so Bawden relaxed and they became friends.
Gross and Bawden in Cairo being silly with a postcard
Anthony Gross is one of the artists who like Edward Ardizzone, has a style so distinctive it is like handwriting. His work is rather like Raoul Dufy, in that elements of the drawing tend to become transparent to compliment the drama of what is happening, but it might also be down to him working on the sport and then adding the colour washing in his evenings.
Anthony Gross – The 50th (Northumbrian) Division, 1944
Anthony Gross – Sandbags in Bethnal Green, 1940
Anthony Gross – Final Stages of the German War: Krupp’s Works at Essen, 1945
Anthony Gross – Gateway into Germany: The Maas in Flood near the Berg Bridge, 1944
Anthony Gross – Desert Patrol, 1942
Anthony Gross – Liberation and Battle of France: The Fall of the Arsenal at Cherbourg, 1944
Anthony Gross – Liberation and Battle of France: Cherbourg, Battalion H.Q. of the East Yorks, 1944
Anthony Gross – Fire in a Paper Warehouse, 1940
Anthony Gross – The 50th (Northumbrian) Division, 1944
Rather like Henry Moore, Gross was able to document the lives of people in the London Underground stations as well.
