| A wonderful artist and designer, Laurence Fish. used to live here in Winchcombe, His wife Jean Bray , wrote a lovely book ' Pick up a Pencil', full of stories about his life and photos of his paintings. ( I think Jean 's next book should be her own memoirs, which are equally fascinating) Personally I love Laurence's commercial work including famous railway posters. .    |
| Laurence Fish |
Before the First World War rail was the only way to travel and the increase in lines brought the boom in seaside resorts. Posters started to show the wonderful, exotic sunny places to visit in Britain. In 1871 Skegness had a population of 500, by 1907 it as having 300,000 visitors a year !
The 20's and 30's are thought of as the Golden Age of Railway poster design and commercial art was beginning to be taken seriously. Fred Taylor, Tom Purvis, Cassandre and Kauffer were all recognised signatures.
A lot of the railway artists/designers are hardly known today but at the time they were among the best known artists of their day.
 |
| Laurence Fish |
After the war posters again showed the sunnier side of life encouraging us all to be optimistic and start travelling. Posters are now highly collectable and reach high prices in auctions....I'm not surprised they are fantastic....but I can't help wishing that the original artists saw more of the money !
.
No comments:
Post a Comment