Tag: London

Paul Nash at St Pancras

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 7th August 2019

Paul Nash – St Pancras, London, 1932

Paul Nash lived in Flat 176, Queen Alexandra Mansions between 1914 and 1936. It belonged to Margaret Odeh before then, he married her and moved in. I would guess he moved out in 1936 because his view of St Pancras Hotel was gone due to the construction of St Pancras Town Hall, later known as Camden Town Hall on Euston Road, designed by A. J. Thomas. In the photographs below you can see Margret and Paul’s view disappearing with the scaffolding and construction.

Paul Nash – St Pancras, London, 1932

The Nash’s lived on the 5th floor and this is the view from their window looking out. It is level with the top of the council offices.

And below is the site as it looks today but would have also looked in 1936 when complete.

Andrew Cusack – St Pancras and Camden Town Hall, 2017

Below are the happier times for the Nash’s when they had a view and Paul was able to paint from his window various flower paintings using the same jug.

Paul Nash – St Pancras Lilies, 1927

Paul Nash – St Pancras, London, 1927

I show below the process of buildings that faced the midlands hotel. First is Titford and Co – Funeral Furniture, Coffin Makers and undertakers – 131 Judd Street.

St Pancras Railway Station, April 1899

Here you see the buildings and gardens gone and the plot of land with signage that Nash would translate in his Nortern Adventure Picture.

St Pancras, London, 1925

Rather like Eric Ravilious at this time, Paul Nash became inspired by the Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico. He translated the signage of construction seen above by the fence into the image below.

Paul Nash, Northern Adventure, 1929.

The painting below is more in Nash style, less abstract but it uses most of the hotel’s arched doors and windows, a favourite motif of de Chirico. The billboards have signage on them so I suppose this is the later image. The name ‘Nostalgic Landscape’ likely noting the view, now lost.

Paul Nash – Nostalgic Landscape, St. Pancras Station, 1929

The image below Dead Spring is said to be a reaction against the artist’s father dying.

February 1929 Nash’s father died. Margaret Nash told Bertram that ‘nothing in their whole married life so profoundly affected her husband as his father’s death’ †

I don’t know I know if I buy into that idea that the painting conveys this. I think it is likely a protest putting the building site and his newly found style to good use. It is also said that the plant is dead, but the plant isn’t dead as it is in flower. I think it’s the landscape that is now dead, not the plant. The geometrical tools and rulers, the type a builder would use, and the features that make me think the outside is the dead world, while poking fun at the technique of de Chirico. They appear in the photo at the bottom of this post.

Paul Nash – Dead Spring, 1929

Paul Nash – St Pancras, London, 1932

Helen Muspratt – Paul Nash, 1932

† Paul Nash, paintings and watercolours, p23, 1975

Tags London, Paul Nash

Bawden – Station to Station

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 25th April 2018

Edward Bawden – Cover illustration for The Twentieth Century, August, 1956

Edward Bawden was bought up in Braintree and after studying at the R.C.A. he moved to Great Bardfield. The nearest station was in Braintree and the terminus for the line was Liverpool Street Station, so as a student at the Royal College of Art or as a teacher there, he would have experienced the station countless times. While being interviewed for the BBC Monitor program Bawden is quoted below:

I don’t think I would have thought of Liverpool Street as a subject, as I am so familiar with it. Almost seems to me an extension of my own house. I think the ceiling is absolutely magnificent, it is one of the wonders of London. †

Bawden would use Liverpool Street Station in many various ways over his life, the first time is this etching done soon after he left the Royal College of Art.

Etchings for artists at this time were used like a romantic ideal of a photograph, very detailed and accurate, but edited. Few artists would use the medium like Bawden did at the time, a handful of exceptions of Christopher Nevinson and William Roberts exist. Bawden however didn’t edition many of the etchings and most of them were left to be forgotten and later reprinted in 1973. The value of Edward Bawden’s etchings is something that should be reviewed as a legacy to the medium.

Another amusing print is Mr. Edward Bawden’s engraving “Liverpool Street”, which is really humorous, not in subject, but in pattern. ‡

Edward Bawden – Liverpool Station, Etching, 1927-29

Below is a drawing used in the Sundour Diary and Notebook, a diary illustrated by Bawden in 1953 with scenes from all over Britain, a simple pen and ink drawing it captures the gothic windows and iron roof top that give the station a cathedral quality.

Edward Bawden – Liverpool Street Station, Drawing, 1953

Bawden, again working in pen and ink, illustrated the cover of the Twentieth Century magazine. He would work for the magazine for three years making covers most of the months with topical themes. This illustration looks like the rush on trains to start the holidays, at the front a father with a child on his shoulders, while carrying two suitcases and followed by a dog. In front of him a luggage trolley collides with a lady.

Edward Bawden – Cover illustration for The Twentieth Century, August, 1956

Bawden was commissioned to make two limited edition prints, one of Liverpool Street Station and one of Kings College, Cambridge, but nothing would come of that. It looks like Bawden trialled making the print in various ways, a lithograph and a linocut. The lithograph below looks almost like a pen doodle with the rooftop being a cobweb and the structure being lost in the detail. The figures on the the picture look like humans made of wire, it’s all very abstract for Bawden.

Edward Bawden – Liverpool Street Station, Artist’s Proof Lithograph, 1960

Edward Bawden – Liverpool Street Station, Linocut, 1960

Above is the final print by Bawden after he settled on a linocut. Below is a study for the linocut as a drawing and with the perspectives bending away to the left. The main structure to the right looking like the final work. The final linocut being flatter and showing off the gothic windows.

Edward Bawden – Liverpool Street Station, Drawing, 1960

Below is a detail from the final print and a look at the repetitive detail and skill in the ironwork, rooftop and train carriages. It also shows off the over-printed steam to the right and the cut out steam to the left. And below that is another detail from the print showing the centre of the print having colour and light.

Edward Bawden – Liverpool Street Station, Linocut (Detail), 1960

Even thought Bawden didn’t complete a print of Kings College, Cambridge, he did in the same year make a print of Braintree Station and this may have covered the commission. From one station to another, these are the main bench ends of Bawden’s world.

Edward Bawden – Braintree Station, Linocut, 1961

† BBC – Monitor, 10 November 1963
‡ Apollo Magazine – 1928, p171

Tags Edward Bawden, great bardfield, Great Bardifeld Artists, Liverpoool Street Station, London

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

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

Lion Hunting in London

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 25th October 2017

I own the book ‘Lion Hunting in London’ by Frank J. Manheim, 1975. A photographic survey of Lions in London, amazingly it hasn’t been reprinted when you think it would be perfect for tourists.

The Book Cover

Apsley Gate at Hyde Park Corner

King’s College

Guarding a grave in Abney Park cemetery

Detail of Westminster & County Insurance Office, Regent Street

Westminster & County Insurance Office, Regent Street

British Museum Lion

Lion Gate, Hampton Court

The Vale

Brompton Road

Lion Door Knockers in Belgravia

Tags Books, London, Photographic

London Dockland.

Post author By Robjn Cantus
Post date 9th March 2017

This is a piece from Lilliput Magazine, 1946. I loved the photos and the history that goes with them. The photographs are by Bill Brandt.

Below Tower Bridge: St Pauls Seen From Bermondsey.
As ships steam up the Thames towards Kings Reach, Tower Bridge looms up ahead of them.Off Shadwell, a mile below, they signal Cherry Garden Pier at Southwark; Cherry Garden telephones to the bridge master, and the great bascules rise to admit them to the heart of London. Above, the traffic waits, but only for ninety seconds: the bridge begins to close before the ships stern is clear. Tower Bridge was built in 1894 at a cost of one and a half million pounds. Beyond the bridge is the dome of St Pauls.

As I Was A-Walking Down Nightingale Lane…
Nightingale Lane would send any rustic bird flying in terror for its life. A brutally uncompromising dockyard street, it wanders grimly between the Customs walls of St. Katharines and London Docks down to Wapplng High Street. But in the 17th century it was a simple country lane. It is recorded that Charles I hunted a stag from Wanstead and that the hill was made in a garden in this lane, to the detriment of the herbs in the garden. The name is actually derived from the knights whom Edgar I allowed to form a guild here it was first called Cnihten, and then Knighten, Guild.

Wareshouses Along The South Bank.
Londons merchant princes may dress in black striped trousers and call themselves limited companies,but the goods they import are more rich and strange than any ever seen in Baghdad. Behind the walls of these drab warehouses lie spices and precious metals; tusks of ivory, furs, and casks of wine. The very grimness of the port is attractive to the visitor. If William Dunbar could return from the 15th century; he might well write again:
“Of merchants full of substance and of might, London, thou art the flower of cities all.”

Shad Thames.
Along the river from St. Saviours Back to Tower Bridge winds a street which, with its bewildering mass of gantries and cranes, and its highly compressed activity, is typical of much of the Thames-side London which has been building up slowly from the time of Drake. Before our great Elizabethan sailors opened the ocean highways, there was a mere trickle of foreign shipping in the Thamesa trickle that was to swell to the greatest flood of shipping in the world. Shad is another name for herring, and as Shad Thames is a continuation of Pickle Herring Street, the name is perhaps not so,obscure as it first appears.

Hermitage Stairs, Wapping.
It is no longer thought that the Romans built the first river wall, but it was already old when it collapsed in 1324 and the river streamed through to flood 100,000 acres of the land now occupied by the London and the St. Katharines docks. After the breach had been repaired people were encouraged to return to Wapping wall and settle, so that there might be someone with a personal interest in keeping the wall in repair. It was around this time that the hermitage is thought to have existed which gave Hermitage Lane its name. Waterman call the river here not the Thames, but the London river.

Horselydown New Stairs, Bermondsey.
The palace, the monastery, and the Abbey that were in their turn the pride of Bermondsey are to-day not even memories. Just below the bridge on the Bermondsey side of the river, Horselydown Lane runs down to the water overground where formerly the houses of great nobles and prelates stood. Here also were the parish archery butts, set up in the reign of Henry VIII. The warehouses lining the dark alleys are not very old, but they have stood long enough to seem immutable, and to provide a dark challenge to town planners.

Charles Browns, Limehouse.
Many of the old East End pubs have a rich historical background, real or synthetic,of piracy, smuggling, and general villainy. Charley Browns is the most famous of the old seafaring taverns, and still the first port of call for most sightseers in the East End. Sailors front all over the world used to bring their trophies to Charley, until the King of Limehouse, as he came to be called, had filled his pub with curios. When Charley died in 1932 ten thousand mourners followed his coffin: The pub is still a sailors, as well as a tourists,house.

Wapping The Wharves.
Today Wapping is less exciting, and much more respectable, than it ever was in the past, when Ratcliffe Highway was the home of the land-shark and the downfall of the sailor. The Carron Wharf, on the right, belongs to a company which in the 18th century invented the carronade, a piece of ordnance which their ships mounted by Government licence. To prevent being mistaken for privateers these ships also carried the likeness of a cannon ball on their masts. This is the view across the river from St. Saviour’s Dock.

Tags bill brandt, Lilliput Magazine, London, Photography, wharf