Picture Posters/Chapter 6

by Charles Hiatt

 

CHAPTER VI.

THE ARTISTIC POSTER IN ENGLAND: FROM FRED WALKER TO DUDLEY HARDY.

While the pictorial poster undoubtedly existed in England previous to the production of Fred Walker's "Woman in White," its artistic qualities were conspicuous by their absence. No body of artists who designed posters, such as that of which Gavarni was one in France, is to be met with in the history of English art until the present day. While, as Mr. Spielmann reminds us in a recent magazine article, Mr. Godfroy Durand and Mr. Walter Crane had both attempted the artistic affiche previous to Walker, the efforts of neither made a pronounced impression, nor were they productive of permanent results. The work of the first of these three artists announced the appearance of the then newly-founded "Graphic" and that of Mr. Walter Crane proclaimed the merits of a brand of lead pencils. It is interesting, as an example of Mr. Crane's immense versatility in decorative design, that he should be among the pioneers of the poster movement in this country. That his early effort was overshadowed by Walker's very imposing work is not a matter of surprise. From the first, Walker appears to have been deeply impressed by the possibilities of the hoardings as a free art gallery. To use his own words, as quoted by Mr. Spielmann: "I am impressed on doing all I can with a first attempt at what I consider might develop into a most important branch of art." How Walker's view has been realized the mere existence of this book is sufficient to prove. This design, which was done to advertise Wilkie Collins's novel, "The Woman in White," represents a magnificently-draped female figure stepping through a door out into the night. With one hand she opens the door, with the other she imposes silence on some person unseen. This was cut on wood by W. H. Hooper, who also engraved the small block we are permitted to reproduce here from "The Magazine of Art." The design is in black and white, and has the limitations from the advertising point of view of black and white work; but, apart from this, it is in every way a work which could not fail to impress the passer-by. "The Woman in White" is, unfortunately, Walker's sole essay in the art of the poster; on the other hand, Mr. Walter Crane has produced a series which, we may hope, has yet to close. It would seem that over ten years elapsed between his first and second attempts in the art of the poster. We meet with him for the second time in a design in blue and yellow

 

DESIGN BY FRED WALKER FOR "THE WOMAN IN WHITE."

 

which advertised the Covent Garden Promenade Concerts given in 1880. This has become extremely rare, and the artist self does not, I believe, possess a copy. Following the Covent Garden bill was one announcing the performances in London of the Paris Hippodrome Troupe. This is merely an enlargement on a vast scale of a classical drawing intended to adorn a book describing the show, but it is distinctly interesting, more so, it seems to me, than the pretty little coloured thing—a window-bill, rather than a poster—which advertises Hau's champagnes. Other posters by Mr. Crane deal with an exhibition of his own works, with various insurance companies, with the "English Illustrated Magazine" (an enlarged version of the cover), and the exhibitions of the Arts and Crafts Society. It will be seen that Mr. Crane's contribution to the art of the poster is a very substantial one, and if his designs do not always fulfil the sweet uses of advertisement, they are generally marked by fine taste. It is a matter of common knowledge that Professor Herkomer has left hardly any art or craft untouched, and it therefore goes without saying that he has left some of them unadorned. To succeed as painter, etcher, carver, musician, poet and playwright, lecturer, and actor is not given to mere man. Professor Herkomer's posters cannot, I think, be considered among his more fortunate performances. That done for "The Magazine of Art" does not lack a certain feeling for composition: the weird

 

DESIGN BY WALTER CRANE.

 

DESIGN BY WALTER CRANE.

 

DESIGN BY PROFESSOR HERKOMER, R.A., FOR "THE MAGAZINE OF ART."

 

BY PROFESSOR HERKOMER, R.A., FROM THE FIRST SKETCH FOR THE POSTER FOR "BLACK AND WHITE."

creature who told us that "Black and White" was coming seemed to me to lack both dignity and grace, and, moreover, to possess very few compensating qualities. Amongst other posters by Professor Herkomer is one for his own exhibition, and one for an exhibition of pictures recently held at Oxford.

It should be noted that while most of the mural decorations of Mr. Crane and Professor Herkomer are, strictly speaking, posters, in that they were designed for the hoardings and for the hoardings alone, a great many designs and pictures by eminent artists have been reproduced and posted contrary to the original intention of their designers. The most prominent of these is, of course, Sir John Millais' famous "Bubbles," on the reproduction of which enormous sums have been spent. The thing is pretty enough, but cannot compete as an advertisement with a really good poster properly so called. Of course the name of Sir John Millais was one to conjure with, and the success of the thing has been, doubtless, great. But it is not an experiment one cares to see frequently repeated. Messrs. Pears were more happily inspired in the commission which they gave to Mr. Stacy Marks to produce a bonâ fide poster. His "Monks Shaving," seems to be most excellently conceived, and, indeed, to be the most interesting of Messrs. Pears’ gallery of illustrated advertisements. Art has certainly played a very prominent part in the battle of the soaps. Mr. G. D. Leslie used his gifts to insist on the merits of the Sunlight brand, while Mr. Burton Barber pleaded pictorially for the Lifebuoy brand. A curious bit of poster-making was the reproduction of a random sketch of a girl sitting on a champagne cork, by Mr. Linley Sambourne, which seems to meet us at every turning. Again, Mr. Harry Furniss's man who had used Pears' soap years back, "and since then had used no other," is an enlarged reproduction used for advertising purposes of a drawing in "Punch." On the other hand, the "Minerva," which Mr. Poynter designed for the Guardian Assurance Company, was actually devised for the purpose of a mural advertisement. It cannot be strictly called a poster, insomuch as it is never seen in the open air unless glazed. It is a classical design in several colours, and is of a very elaborate character. For the purpose of exhibition indoors, it is glazed and mounted on linen with rollers. Another contemporary English painter who has received very high official recognition and has done a poster is Sir James Linton, P.R.I. His subject was assuredly an attractive one, "Antony and Cleopatra," but it can hardly be maintained that, for an artist of so great repute, he has produced an especially memorable design. It is a lithograph in one

 

DESIGN BY H. STACY MARKS, R.A.

 

DESIGN BY EDWARD J. POYNTER, R.A.

colour, and measures fifty by fifty-two inches. Its date is 1874, so it is clear that Sir James Linton is among the little band who tried to do something for the pictorial poster in

 

DESIGN BY SIR JAMES LINTON, P.R.I.

 

England when it was held of no account. Mr. Charles Green, a member of the institution of which Sir James is president, produced a rather ingenious advertisement of an exhibition of works in black and white held some time ago in Mosley Street. It

 

DESIGN BY CHARLES GREEN R.I.

 

DESIGN BY LINLEY SAMBOURNE.

is not very large, and is a lithograph in one colour.

It will be observed that the artistic poster was in the air in England not very long after it began to develop in France. It does not, however, seem to have taken so great a hold on English artists or on the English public as on the artists and public of France. In England the artistic poster appears to have been received coldly or with indifference, and doubtless many designers who would have been glad to turn their attention to the poster were deterred therefrom by lack of public sympathy. But all this has happily been changed, and if the number of poster designers is to continue increasing at the present rate, the difficulty will be, not to find the artistic advertiser, but to find the thing to be advertised. A crowd of clever young men, actuated by the success which met the efforts of the designers dealt with in the next chapter, have rushed to the poster with results altogether important