Author: Robjn Cantus

Shell – Everywhere You Go

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 15th February 2018

Both beautiful and inspiring, the artwork that Shell used on their posters was a shift in advertising for two reasons: They were selling the ambitions of the motorist beyond commuting; a generation of day-trippers without trains. Also they were presenting modern art to the public in an era when museums charged admission. The posters were pasted on the sides of petrol stations, lorries and billboards with that simple line “You Can Be Sure of Shell”.

Shell Mex Limited appointed a new Publicity Director in 1932, Jack Beddington. His insight turned the British Shell advertisements of the 1930s into one of the classic campaigns of the twentieth century. The genius of the campaign was to let artists depict Britain in their own styles, they would paint an image and whatever their style, it was surrounded by text. There would be no need for product placement, for models holding petrol cans, it was a campaign exposing the beauty and wonder of Britain and modern art.

Some of these posters were exhibited at the New Burlington Galleries in 1934. Below are two quotes from different reviews on the exhibition that show the surprise of critics to Beddington’s use of modern artists in poster design.

It is now a good many years since, under the able directorship of Mr Frank Pick, some of our best designers were encouraged to show their works in public – using the expression in its broadest sense. People who never though of going to picture galleries could, for the first time find delight in good pictorial art even in an Underground station and in the street. –
Apollo, January to June, 1934, p322 †

If it can be hoped that big firms like Shell-Mex are really going to patronize art as intelligently as this, we shall expect to be seeing in a few years’ time at Christie’s, not the sale of the collection of the Duke of Frumpshire, but of the Gas Light and Coke Company. If the princes of commerce are going to behave like princes we shall have some fun. ‡

The Everywhere You Go series is one of the more curious for it is before the typographic design for the posters had settled down, a range of typefaces, colours and sizes are used. The first offering by W J Steggles has the tag line in lowercase. Steggles was part of the now fashionable, East London Group of artists, he painted various scenes for Shell posters, as did his brother Harold and

Elwin Hawrhorne.

Walter James Steggles – The Thames at Cookham

Edgar Ainsworth – Gordale Scar

Elwin Hawrhorne – North Foreland Lighthouse

Robert Miller – Devil’s Elbow, Braemar

Harold Steggles – Bungay

Rosemary and Clifford Ellis – Lower Slaughter

Graham Sutherland – Oust Houses nr Leeds, Kent

M. A. Miles – Polperro Cornwall

Charles Mozley – Boxhill

John Armstrong – Newlands Corner

Graham Sutherland – The Great Globe, Swanage

George Hooper – Kintbury Berks

John Armstrong – Near Lamorna

Paul Nash – Rye Marshes

Edward Wakeford – Gravesend

† Apollo, January to June, 1934, p322
‡ W.W.Winkworth – The Spectator – 29 JUNE 1934, p15

Catherine McDermott – Design Museum Book of Twentieth Century Design, 1998, p319

Tags BP, Charles Mozley, Clifford Ellis, Edgar Ainsworth, Edward Wakeford, George Hooper, Graham Sutherland, Harold Steggles, Jack Beddington, Paul Nash, R&CR, RandCR, Robert Miller, Rosemary and Clifford Ellis, Rosemary Ellis, Shell, shell mex, Shell Poster, Walter James Steggles

The Etchings of Graham Sutherland

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 8th February 2018

Graham Sutherland – Number Fourty-Nine, 1924

Rather like my post on Graham Clarke, where I complained of his etchings and promoted his linocuts, in this post I would sooner promote and have a Sutherland etching than any of his other works.

I don’t know why I dislike so many of his paintings and to my opinion he only got worse with time. His work before WW2 seemed to have the sinister lust for mocking everything into destruction. It is almost as if he was calling for the war and then to use it as source material afterwards.

Frederick Landseer Griggs – Southwell Minster, 1916

Sutherland was apprenticed as an engineer before studying engraving at Goldsmiths College in London. His tutor was F. L. Griggs, who had been working as an illustrator for the Highways and Byways series of books. These publications bought to light the modern ability to travel by bus, car or train around the country. Griggs pen drawings for these books, I would say, were the point when romantic nostalgia came back into fashion and his students would have been exposed to this.

‘He had a palm as delicate as gossamer,’ Sutherland remembered, it was his drawn illustrations to the thirteen volumes of the Highways and Byways guidebooks which had inspired both Piper and Sutherland as boys. When the older man offered both friendship and technical advice Sutherland was flattered to receive it. He and Paul Drury spent the Christmas of 1926 with Griggs learning about inking plates and printing them. Above all he helped to augment their growing enthusiasm for Palmer. †

Samuel Palmer – Landscape, Girl Standing, 1826

In autumn 1924 William Larkins showed his friends a Palmer print The Herdsman’s Cottage, which he had bought in Charing Cross Road. This tiny work came as a revelation to them all. Sutherland recalled: I remember I was amazed by its completeness, both emotional and technical. It was unheard of at the school to cover the plate almost completely with work and quite new to us that the complex variety and multiplicity of lines could form a tone of such luminosity. †

The landscapes were daring and drawn from unexpected viewpoints: The Girl in the Ploughed Field astonished me with its total disregard for conventional composition. The drawing is almost what we today call naïf. †

So, as noted, the biggest change in style for Sutherland at this time from the teaching of Griggs into the engraving style of Palmer works would be to etching the sky. The image Number Fourty-Nine above from 1924 has a clean sky where as the images below have engraving all over the etching-plate.

In the 1920s, when photographs were being used as illustrations, the question of art was in doubt; why should an artist depict a scene when the camera can do the job for them? So the result was that an artist can bend reality. From this came an ideal eden like view of the past and a retelling of rural life before the invention of machines. Later on the art world would rebel against the camera and surrealist, cubist and impressionist styles would be invented.

The 1920s was the start of a revival for Palmer, unpublished plates were being printed, the Medici Society published his other works for the public and books were being scribed.

Other artists worth noting are Robin Tanner or Paul Drury, both new converts to the church of Samuel Palmer’s work. These men walked the first steps in the world of the New Romantics, coming out of Goldsmiths College at that time.

Paul Drury – September, 1928

Robin Tanner – The Road Mender, 1928

All men at the same time made an impact on the artworld and they all shared themes, knowingly or not. Below are the etchings of Sutherland.

Graham Sutherland – Wood Interior, 1929

Graham Sutherland – Cray Fields, 1925

Graham Sutherland – Pecken Wood, 1925

I thought it worth including this study by Sutherland of a print. Looking more like a mono-print it has all the qualities of Palmer’s work as it is done in ink and oil paint. The final etching is below.

Graham Sutherland – Sketch for Pastoral, 1930

Graham Sutherland – Pastoral, 1930

Graham Sutherland – Oast House, 1932

These words would get translated in various styles into Sutherland’s work but one of the most restrained and pleasing was this Shell Poster.

Graham Sutherland – Shell Poster – Oust Houses, Near Leeds, Kent, 1932

† The Spirit of Place: Nine Neo-Romantic Artists and Their Times, 2001, p108
Stuart Sillars – British Romantic Art and the Second World War, 1991, p42

Tags British Romantic Art, Etching, Graham Sutherland, Paul Drury, Robin Tanner, Romantic Art

Villers and Picasso

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 1st February 2018

André Villers et Pablo Picasso – Picasso dans le jardin de La Californie, 1961

Picasso was always interested in trying every medium of the arts. So in 1961 it comes as no surprise that he joined the photographer André Villers to work on a series of collaborative decoupages. These were drawings and paper cut outs by Picasso with photographs by Villers. Most of the works were published in 1962.

Pablo Picasso – Selection of some of the Paper cut outs, 1961

The Picasso paper cut outs where layered in the way the cyanotype is, placing items on photographic paper in a dark room and exposing natural light to them. Items placed on the paper would, after processing come out white on a black background; the paper drawings would appear white when processed. This negative would then be placed with one of Villers photograph negatives, a leaf, tree… the black areas of Picasso’s images would be transparent when processed and exposed as one picture. The result is a series of naive paper-cuts in cubic style and silly humour.

Pablo Picasso – L’Homme aux Chats II, 1962

Pablo Picasso – L’Homme aux Chats I, 1962

André Villers and Pablo Picasso – Diurnes: Nunc, 1962

André Villers and Pablo Picasso – Le Corrigan Effeuille, 1962

André Villers and Pablo Picasso – Un General, 1962

André Villers and Pablo Picasso – Le Corrigan a la Dentelle, 1962

André Villers and Pablo Picasso – Vacarme, 1962

André Villers and Pablo Picasso – Hic, 1962

André Villers and Pablo Picasso – Le Garou, 1962

André Villers and Pablo Picasso – Untitled, 1962

André Villers and Pablo Picasso – La Chèvre à l’Horizon, 1962

André Villers and Pablo Picasso – La Chèvre au Grillage, 1962

Tags Andre Villers, Cyanotype, Pablo Picasso, Picasso

Great Bardfield at the GPO

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 25th January 2018

This post covers a range of designs for the General Post Office by the artists of Great Bardfield, I think the post also shows the troubles of being a designer and how often artists were asked to submit designs and have them rejected.

We start with Sheila Robinson, who was the wife of Bernard Cheese and mother of artist Chloe Cheese. Like many of the Great Bardfield artists, Robinson was a print-maker but unlike most print-makers she used cardboard as a medium giving her prints a unique subtle quality. Her first commission for the Post Office would be to design one of two stamps for the 900th Anniversary of Westminster Abbey in 1966.

Miss Sheila Robinson, an art teacher at the Royal College of Art, designed the 3p stamp (No. 452). This was her first attempt at stamp designing and her full name appears as imprint on the stamps. The 3p stamps, printed by Harrison and Sons.

Sheila Robinson – 900th Anniversary of Westminster Abbey Stamp, 1966.

Her next commission would be four years later as part of the British Rural Architecture set of four stamps, Robinson designed two stamps, the other two being designed by David Gentleman. Released on 11th February 1970, they were in circulation for one year. The final designs were Welsh Stucco and Ulster Thatch.

Sheila Robinson – Welsh Stucco Stamp, 1970

Sheila Robinson – Ulster Thatch, 1970

Above: Part of the information packet to the stamps
Below: are two other stamp designs and one prototype design.

Sheila Robinson – Stamp Design Study – Welsh Stucco Stamp, 1970

Sheila Robinson – Unused Stamp Design Study, 1970

Sheila Robinson – Abingdon (Linocut published by The Post Office), 1965

George Chapman had designed posters for Shell and the GPO. After he moved from Great Bardfield he moved to Wales, painting pictures in limited palates of colour, this is a grim looking image with the setting sun.

George Chapman – GPO Poster: This is Aberayron Cardiganshire, 1962

Denise Hoyle is the wife of Walter Hoyle and designed some simple posters for the Post Office savings bank, with the artwork being made from collages.

Denise Hoyle – Post Office Savings Bank,

Denise Hoyle – Post Office Savings Bank

Walter Hoyle’s poster designs for the Savings Bank are also curiously off, depicting daily life but in an unfashionable way. Harlow looks wretched with a Golly in the corner and Morris Dancing is hardly popular. The Pennan, Aberdeenshire poster has a beautiful painting with it but feels very lonely.

Walter Hoyle – Harlow, New Town, Post Office Savings Bank,

Walter Hoyle – Morris Dancers, Dunmow, Thaxted.

Walter Hoyle – Post Office Savings Bank – Four Nations.

Walter Hoyle – Post Office Pennan, Aberdeenshire, GPO Poster, 1954

Walter Hoyle – Artwork for Post Office Pennan, Aberdeenshire, 1954

Eric Ravilious only work for the Post Office was a invitation to design a stamp to commemorate 100 years since the introduction of the Penny Black, the first adhesive stamp. Sadly this was not commissioned.

Eric Ravilious – Design for Stamp, 1940

Edward Bawden’s work for the GPO included work that was and wasn’t commissioned. The Post Office Tube Railway was used as a poster with Printed text blow on another sheet.

Edward Bawden – Post Office Tube Railway, 1935

The poster Bawden designed for London Transport to advertise Kew Gardens would be turned into stamps later along with other artists. The full image is on the poster but on the stamp they have cropped it.

Edward Bawden – Kew Gardens Poster for London Underground, 1936

Edward Bawden – Kew Gardens Stamp, 1993

Below is a telegram design by Bawden that was not used by the GPO.

In the archives are lists showing that many well-known artists had not only been considered but had actually been invited to proffer designs. That so many of these invitees did not result in published telegrams may have been a combination of reluctance on the side of the artist and under-confidence or economy on the side of the Post Office.

A list, … included McKnight Kauffer, Graham Sutherland, Edward Bawden, Gwen Raverat and Fougasse. And a further list some two years later, in 1937, apparently emanating from Beddington, included Robin Darwin, Claude Flight, Blair Hughes-Stanton, Cedric Morris, John Nash and Clare Leighton. Many of these were subsequently formally invited to submit roughs. †

Edward Bawden – Telegram Design, 1935

† Ruth Artmonsky – Bringer of Good Tidings. Greetings Telegrams, 2009 – p22

Tags Denise Hoyle, Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious, George Chapman, great bardfield, Shelia Robinson, Walter Hoyle

Cat Wife

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 18th January 2018

Here is a series of images from La Fontaine’s fable The Cat Transformed into a Woman by different artists with the poem translated.

Marc Constantin’s song sheet – The Cat transformed into a woman from the La Fontaine’s fable, 1846.

A bachelor caressed his cat,
A darling, fair, and delicate;
So deep in love, he thought her mew
The sweetest voice he ever knew.

By prayers, and tears, and magic art,
The man got Fate to take his part;
And, lo! one morning at his side
His cat, transformed, became his bride.

Edward Bawden – My Cat Wife, 1986

In wedded state our man was seen
The fool in courtship he had been.
No lover ever was so bewitched
By any maiden’s charms
As was this husband, so enriched
By hers within his arms.

He praised her beauties, this and that,
And saw there nothing of the cat.
In short, by passion’s aid, he
Thought her a perfect lady.
It was night: some carpet gnawing mice
Disturbed the nuptial joys.
Excited by the noise,
The bride sprang at them in a trice;

Tirzah Garwood – The Cat Wife, 1928

The mice were scared and fled.
The bride, scarce in her bed,
The gnawing heard, and sprang again,
And this time not in vain,

For, in this novel form arrayed,
Of her the mice were less afraid.
Through life she loved this mousing course,
So great is stubborn nature’s force.

In mockery of change, the old
Will keep their youthful bent.
When once the cloth has got its fold,
The smelling-pot its scent,

In vain your efforts and your care
To make them other than they are.
To work reform, do what you will,
Old habit will be habit still.
Nor fork nor strap can mend its manners,
Nor cudgel-blows beat down its banners.
Secure the doors against the renter,
And through the windows it will enter.

Marc Chagall – The Cat Transformed into a Woman, 1926

In 1926 Ambroise Vollard commissioned Chagall to illustrate La Fontaine’s ‘Fables’. ‘The Cat Transformed into a Woman’ illustrates the story of a man who so adored his cat that he was able to turn her into a woman and marry her. He thought she would be the perfect wife. However, he soon realised he could not change her in every respect, as she still chased mice. †

† Tate – N05759

Tags Edward Bawden, la fontaine, marc chagall, tirzah garwood

Ruskin House / Rebound

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 11th January 2018

I bought this book the other day, it is Amelia by Henry Fielding from 1906, published by George Bell and Sons, later rebound by ‘Everybody’s Rebound’, run by the publishers Everybody’s Books. On the cover is this:

– This is a rebound copy of a book worth reading published by a well-known publisher.
– We are rebinding books such as this in order that as many books as possible may do their job twice and so help the vital “Save Paper” Campaign.
– If you have any books of any kind, and in any condition, that you can spare send or bring them to us and we will make you the highest cash offer.

I can only guess the Save Paper Campaign was from the Second World War. Everybody’s Books were based at 156 Charing Cross Road and 4 Denmark Street. It was a cunning idea to take old books and re-brand them as their own. As one thing leads to another… The building of the publishers has a curious history.

The Rolling Stones recorded at Regent Sound Studio based at 4 Denmark Street.

156 Charing Cross Road has now been demolished but stood close to Centre Point in London. The building was taken by George Allen. In 1890 Allen opened a London publishing house at 8 Bell Yard, Chancery Lane; and in 1894 he moved to a larger place at 156 Charing Cross Road. There he took to general publishing, though Ruskin’s works remained the major part of his business. He died in 1907 but the publishing house Allen and Unwin lives on. While there George Allen named the building Ruskin House.

Some time in 1909 George Allen moved from the building. The offices of the building were then occupied by the Woman’s Press from 5 May 1910 until October 1912. Established in 1907, the Woman’s Press has been described as “..an all-encompassing, self-funding propaganda division” of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). The premises at Charing Cross Road constituted a shop at ground floor level, and offices of the Woman’s Press above. The shop stocked a range of campaign-themed goods such as ribbons and rosettes, as well as other items like tea and soap which featured their motto ‘Votes for Women’. The upstairs offices housed the WSPU’s wholesale and retail operations, however the editorial division remained based at the union’s Clements Inn headquarters. Despite its name, the printing was largely undertaken by St Clements Press near Clements Inn.

It is likely that after the WSPU came Everybody’s Books in the late 30s.

The Woman’s Press, Ruskin House, 156 Charing Cross, London.

Tags London

Bawden in Dunwich

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 4th January 2018

1943

After returning from Africa and Europe via Dunkirk, Edward Bawden continued his war work and went to paint army maneuvers at Dunwich on the Suffolk coast. Troop and tank testing with flame throwers on the heath and in the woodland. But this post really is about Bawden’s return there in 1948 in peacetime, but the war work makes a curious contrast.

Edward Bawden – Exercise Kruschen (Dunwich Common): Ronson Flame-throwers, 1943

Edward Bawden – Exercise Kruschen (Dunwich Common): Tank Fascines; the ‘Snake’ Ronson flame-thrower, 1943

1948

It is reported that John Nash and Edward Bawden went on a trip to Dunwich, staying at the Barne Arms (Now the Ship). It is probable to guess that John Aldridge joined them too. Below are various pictures from that trip.

Edward Bawden – Cliffs at Dunwich, 1948

Edward Bawden -The Church at Dunwich, 1948

Edward Bawden – Ilex & Fir, Greyfriars Wood, 1948

The most curious trick that Bawden uses are in some of the following paintings, the main features are just outline, the bridge in Lovers Lane, the Ash Bins and also the Coastguard station on the cliffs – just the most simple and abstracted forms. In Cliffs at Dunwich painting above the building again is abstract in the landscape.

Edward Bawden – Lover’s Lane, near Dunwich, Suffolk, 1948

Edward Bawden – Ash bins, this picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy.

Edward Bawden – An Old Coastguard Station, 1948

Edward Bawden – A Dry Moat, 1948

Richard Scott – Artists at Walberswick, 2002, p101

Tags Dunwich, Edward Bawden, great bardfield

Photos from the Summer

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 4th January 2018

Here as the new year starts are a selection of photos from the Summer, as anyone who may have looked at my Instagram page would have noticed I am always taking photographs, I recently clocked over 14,000 posts on there alone. But here are a few simple photos of a bright and warmer time of England.

Tags Photography

Saving Covent Garden

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 28th December 2017

Covent Garden Market in London has a varied history that came to a head in the 1960s. Traffic to and from the market for buyers and traders was bothersome enough with narrow horse carts but with larger cars and lorries it was a nightmare.

In 1961 the Covent Garden Market Bill was passed, there was some deliberation on what would happen to the historic buildings of Covent Garden after that. Redevelopment plans arose, and for ten years these plans were fiercely fought by the Covent Garden community, arguing in favour of preserving the area for its historical value and cultural meaning.

The Elephant being the GLC for Greater London Council, trampling on the area.

Their victory in this battle preserved Covent Garden’s old market buildings and they were reopened as a major tourist and shopping destination in 1980. The market had to be moved in its entirety across the river to Nine Elms in 1974 but the original buildings were preserved. Below are the responses to the closure and artistic propaganda by David Gentleman to show the beauty of the area.

By the end of the 1960s, traffic congestion had reached such a level that the use of the square as a modern wholesale distribution market was becoming untenable, and significant redevelopment was planned. Following a public outcry, buildings around the square were protected in 1973, preventing redevelopment. The following year the market moved to a new site in south-west London. The square languished until its central building re-opened as a shopping centre in 1980.

Goodbye Covent Garden was a photobook published in 1975 by Oxford Illustrated Press. It featured photographs of the workers and people around Covent Garden taken by Ena Bodin in the last two years of the market. Other than the cars and beautiful signage in the photographs you can see some of the mens fashions and even in some cases – platform shoes.

Above the picture shows the original Market building in use and below you can see the beautiful lithographs by David Gentleman.

David Gentleman – Foreign Fruit Market, 1972

David Gentleman – Southern Section of Piazza (James Butler), 1972

David Gentleman – East Terrace, 1972

David Gentleman – Ellen Keeley’s Shop, 1972

The main premises of barrow-making firm of Ellen Keeley est. in Ireland in 1830. The Keeley family came to England at the time of the potato famine and lived in Nottingham Court. James Keeley invented and produced the costermonger’s barrow, like a shop on wheels and also developed the donkey barrow, once a familiar sight in London. In 1891 he was living at No.12 Nottingham Court and the elderly costermonger Ellen was living alone at No.8. In the 1960s the firm branched out into hiring their vehicles to the film industry (Keeley Hire in Hoddesdon).

Ellen Keeley’s Shop, 33 Neals Street, 2017.

David Gentleman – Warehouses between Shelton St and Earlham St, 1972

David Gentleman – Piazza Looking South Past St Paul’s, 1972

David Gentleman – Warehouse in Mercer St, 1972

David Gentleman – The Flower Market, Covent Garden, 1972

The photography in this post is more of a defeat than a triumph, it is the documenting the end of something. The works of David Gentleman however placed along-side these photos show that Gentleman’s lithographs were able to inspire a vision of the area, making the dishevelled and shabby, romantic. Much like an Eric Ravilious painting. In making the lithographs I believe that Gentleman helped to present a case for the areas protection amongst the artists and lovers of conservation at the time when a spotlight was being put on the East End and Spitalfields.

Tags covent garden, David Gentleman, lithography, London, Photography

Great Bardfield Christmas Cards

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 21st December 2017

Here are some of the Christmas cards from various Great Bardfield artists. I have always thought it important to send out something decorative and interesting at Christmas and the Bardfield artists were the same.

Eric Ravilious – Christmas Card

With some of the artists like Walter Hoyle the envelopes were just as important as the cards for decoration. Many of them were numbered as editioned prints. Signed from Walter and his wife Denise.

Walter Hoyle – Christmas Card Envelope, 1986

Walter Hoyle – Christmas Card, 1986

Walter Hoyle – Christmas Card and Envelope, 1983

Walter Hoyle – Christmas Card

Walter Hoyle – Christmas Envelope

Walter Hoyle – Christmas Card

Michael Rothenstein – Christmas Card & Design for Faber and Faber, 1962

The note below is from Michael Rothenstein to David Bland of Faber and Faber. Faber were planning the Christmas card in June as the letter is dated 28th of that month. The picture above shows the finished design to the left and the prototype to the right.

Here is a further rough of the Christmas tree idea. I want to make the star at the top of the main image: star of Bethlehem, star of hope, of joy, as well as the star of morning, the tree, for me this is the most potent Christmas image….