Ruskin House / Rebound

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.

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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.

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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.

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

Bawden in Dunwich

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.

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

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

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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.

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 Edward Bawden – Cliffs at Dunwich, 1948

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 Edward Bawden -The Church at Dunwich, 1948

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 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.

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

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

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 Edward Bawden – An Old Coastguard Station, 1948

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 Edward Bawden – A Dry Moat, 1948

Richard Scott – Artists at Walberswick, 2002, p101

Photos from the Summer

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.

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Saving Covent Garden

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. 

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 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.

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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.

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

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 David Gentleman – Foreign Fruit Market, 1972

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

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 David Gentleman – East Terrace, 1972

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 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).

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

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

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

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 David Gentleman – Warehouse in Mercer St, 1972

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 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.

Great Bardfield Christmas Cards

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.

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 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.

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 Walter Hoyle – Christmas Card Envelope, 1986

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 Walter Hoyle – Christmas Card, 1986

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 Walter Hoyle – Christmas Card and Envelope, 1983

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 Walter Hoyle – Christmas Card

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 Walter Hoyle – Christmas Card

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 Walter Hoyle – Christmas Envelope

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 Walter Hoyle – Christmas Card

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 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….

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Below are two Christmas cards from Kenneth Rowntree his wife Diana and family.

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 Kenneth Rowntree – Christmas Card

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 Kenneth Rowntree – Christmas Card

Below are some more images from other Great Bardfield artists.

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 John Aldridge – Christmas Card

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 Sheila Robinson – Christmas Card Design

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 Michael Rothenstein – Christmas Card

Inspiration from the Home

Great Bardfield being a small community of artists, it is only natural that they would borrow ideas, items and homes from each other to work in. Here are a few examples of connections in illustrated books by the people in the community that all were published within a few years of each other.

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 Edward Bawden – Sunday Evening, 1949 (Life in an English Village)

The picture above shows the sitting room at Ives Farm, Great Bardfield. Tom Ives is pictured in the corner with his pipe. It’s depicted in a lithograph by Edward Bawden from the King Penguin book ‘Life in an English Village’ (1949), around the same time Aldridge himself used this house in a book illustration for ‘Adam Was A Ploughman’ (1947) by Clarence Henry Warren.

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 John Aldridge – Living Room, 1947 (Adam Was A Ploughman)

On the fireplace you can see a Staffordshire figure of a lion by a tree, it was illustrated again on another page in ‘Adam Was A Ploughman’, pictured below.

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John Aldridge – Lion, 1947 (Adam Was A Ploughman)

The photograph below is from Volume Five of The Saturday Book (1945), in a chapter by Edwin Smith on ‘Household Gods’ and is the same Staffordshire Lion. 

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 Edwin Smith – Lion, 1945 (The Saturday Book)

Back to the drawing of Ives farm living room is a corn-dolly hanging up, below in the King Penguin book ‘Life in an English Village’ I have picked it out in yellow.

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 John Aldridge – Living Room, 1947 (Adam Was A Ploughman)

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 Edward Bawden – Corn-dollies, 1949  (Life in an English Village)

To the bottom right of the image above is also the bell used in the Pub lithograph below. Below the bell, the one-eyed man is Fred Mizen, a gardener and thatcher who also had a talent for making corn-dollie, it is likely all of them are by him.

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 Edward Bawden – The Bell (detail), 1949  (Life in an English Village)

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 Michael Rothenstein – Clock and Candlestick, 1942

The painting by Rothenstein above is a curious still life of a table and village scene. Curiously enough these items appear again in fifth Volume of The Saturday Book, along with the Aldridge Lion photograph. The article mentioned the clock ‘flanked by exotic shapes contrived from coloured balls on candlesticks’ it is wisely assumed that the picture is from Rothenstein’s house.

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 Edwin Smith – Clock and Candlestick, 1945 (The Saturday Book)

Clarence Henry Warren – Adam Was A Ploughman, 1947
Leonard Russell (Editor) – The Saturday Book, 1945
Noel Carrington – Life in an English Village, 1949

The Obituary of Duffy Ayers

The Obituary of Duffy Ayers

A Walk in the Woods.

On a bit of a dull weather day I took my camera with me as I went for a walk in the woods, so here are some photos from my instagram feed.

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Puffin Impostors

The Puffin picture book series was inspired from various continental and Russian children’s books; as Insel-Bücherei publications inspired the King Penguin series, the Puffin books also inspired others due to the handy size for displaying information. Here are some books that are the same size but are styled in a suspiciously similar way. Some of them are a series of BBC books, others are by tea companies and the V&A.

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The Linocuts of Graham Clarke

I never really cared for the over complicated etchings of Graham Clarke but I discovered his linocuts on a Shell Poster and was amazed. They are full of the countryside and vivid colours, a wonderful construction and to me, totally pleasing.

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 Graham Clarke – Harvest Moon

Born in 1941, Clarke’s upbringing in the austerity of war-time and post-war Britain, made him reliant on his own imaginative resources.

He was educated at Beckenham Art School, where he fell under the spell of Samuel Palmer’s romantic and visionary view of the Shoreham countryside. At the Royal College of Art he specialised in illustration and printmaking, and pursued his interest in calligraphy. With encouragement from Edward Bawden, Clarke began refining an individual aesthetic, printing traditional landscapes marked by a sense of locality and genre. Graduating in 1964, most of these prints are from the 60s.

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 Graham Clarke – Llanthony Priory, Autumn (Commissioned by Shell)

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 Graham Clarke – Hill at Woodlands

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 Graham Clarke – Home to Filiston

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 Graham Clarke – Highfield, Winter

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 Graham Clarke – Cottage in the Valley

 Graham Clarke – Hayfield, Timberden

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 Graham Clarke – Big Field

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 Graham Clarke – Timberden