ILLUSTRATION & GRAPHIC DESIGN

Alan Aldridge

Alan Aldridge (1938-2017) developed a surrealist, cartoony style. He used airbrushing to create dreamy curves. He was a tall, fair-haired Romford native who had the gift of the gab. His artistic inclinations were not encouraged at school although he made pocket money by selling D.I.Y. porn in the playground. He left at fourteen and took a job as a docker. He went on to have a series of other jobs. One of these was being a scenery painter at The Old theatre. There he realised that he might be able to make a living from his artistic flair. In 1963 he secured his first job by passing off his girlfriend's portfolio as his own. He was told to wear a suit. He stole one from Bethnal Green Baths. Once he started work his supervisor soon realised that he did not know what he was doing but by then had taken a liking to him and so allowed him to stay. He improved his drawing skills by drawing people in The French House.

Penguin Books's art director Germano Facetti hired Aldridge. The Sunday Times newspaper hired him to create striking images for its Magazine colour supplement. In October 1965 he painted a mini in psychedelic colours to create his most memorable front-cover for it. The same year Penguin hired him to be its art director. He revamped the house style. Sales of science fiction titles soared. He became the most in demand graphic designer in the country. He was to become known as Beardsley in Blue Jeans .

In 1966 Aldridge drew an illustration for the Beatles song Dr Robert for a review of their album Revolver that Nova magazine published. It featured a caped man selling body parts from within it. John Lennon telephoned to tell him that he had got it, Dr Robert had been a physician who sold amphetamines and injected vitamins. From this phone call the graphic designer became a close associate of the band, Lennon terming him His Royal Master of Images To Their Majesties The Beatles . In 1968 he opened Ink, his own studio. By then he was describing himself as a graphic entertainer . The band were his first clients. He created one of Apple Corps s few successes - the two-volume The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics (1969 and 1971). It sold millions of copies. The Beatles biographer Philip Norman was to write Before Aldridge, commercial artists were unseen. After him, they smoked dope, drove Lotus Elans and made editors jump at their lordly whims. The Poet Laureate John Betjeman admired his work, referring to him as 'the governor'.

During the 1970 general election Aldridge worked for the Labour Party.

The album covers that Aldridge designed included: The Who's A Quick One (1966) and Cream's Goodbye Cream (1971).

Aldridge s poster for the Andy Warhol film Chelsea Girls (1966) featured the sixteen-year-old model Clare Shenstone. The image was held by some to be pornographic and led to a warrant being issued for his arrest.

In 1972 Aldridge moved to a rectory in Norfolk. There, using William Roscoe's poem The Butterfly's Ball and The Grasshopper's Feast (1802) he created the illustrated children's book The Butterfly Ball. The following year it was Whitbread Children's Book of The Year.

Aldridge was friends with Elton John and designed the cover for the album Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy (1975). He moved to Los Angeles where he created The Hard Rock Caf logo.

In 2008 the Design Museum staged The Man With The Kaleidoscope Eyes, a retrospective of his work.

Artists Partners

Artists Partners was composed of a group of illustrators whose work had a high profile in 1960s London. Its members included Dino D Achille (1935-2017), whose best-known work was the covers for George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman novels.

Band Logos

Mötorhead

Phil Lloyd-Smee created the M torhead logo.

The Rolling Stones

John Pasche, a final year graphic design student at the Royal College of Art, designed for a poster for the Rolling Stones 1970 European tour. The band appreciated his work. Subsequently, he was invited to design a logo for the band. He created the lips and tongue logo. The imagery derived from a picture of the Indian goddess Kali that Mick Jagger had on his wall.

After seeing the 1968 Pop Art Exhibition at the Hayward Gallery Pasche had developed a particular interest in Pop Art, posters and images.

While he created the poster, he was sitting next to his friend George Hardie, who was designing the Dark Side of The Moon cover for Pink Floyd.

In about 1973 the logo started to take off as a merchandising item. The band assigned a portion of the sales revenue. In 1984 the band bought whatever intellectual property he may have had.

Peter Blake

Of the album covers that the painter Peter Blake has designed, his favourite is Brian Wilson's Getting In Over My Head (2004).

George Cruickshank

George Cruickshank illustrated the British edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales (1823). This was proved to be a foundation stone of children's books being illustrated. Their character helped transform what was a collection of earthy tales into material that was targeted at children.

Walter Crane and Arthur Rackham were to follow.

George Cruickshank illustrated Oliver Twist (1839).

Engravings

John Martin

John Martin was a 19^thC painter who earned a fortune through specialising in apocalyptical scenes. His money came not from selling the paintings themselves but rather engravings of them.

Film Posters

Geoff Martin of Rank's Rome-based Italian distribution business noticed the quality of Italian film posters. Its UK advertising agency Downton Advertising started using them. Initially, the work was sent to Britain. However, some of the illustrators moved to Britain, notably Renato Fratini (d.1973) and Arnaldo Putzu (1927-2012).

John Hassall

John Hassall started designing posters in the mid-1890s. His best-known work is The Jolly Fisherman (1908), which he created for the Great Northern Railway Company. Its caption read Skegness is so bracing . He was paid twelve guineas for it. In 1936 Hassall made his only visit to the town. He was awarded the freedom of the foreshore . Thirty years later British Railways gave the original poster and the attached copyright to the Town of Skegness. The work was put on display in the Town Hall.

Location: 88 Kensington Park Road, W11 2PL (red, purple)

Website: www.skegness.gov.uk/jolly-fisherman-historyl www.londonsketchclub.com/archives/1500biographies

The House of Illustration

The House of Illustration is a public gallery. It was born out of the success of a 2002 exhibition of Quentin Blake s work that was staged at The National Gallery. Subsequently, he and a group of other illustrators decided there should be a space that showed their work. The House of Illustration opened on Granary Square in 2014. It closed in 2021

In 2024 the House of Illustration reopened within the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration. It housed Blake's archive.

Location: The Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, New River Head, 173 Rosebery Avenue, EC1R 4TY (blue, turquoise)

Website: www.houseofillustration.org.uk www.quentinblake.com

David King

David King (1943-2016) was a graphic designer who had a strong in Soviet Constructivist design. He amassed a large collection of its ephemera. His own work included being the art editor of The Sunday Times Magazine from 1965 to 1975, the Anti-Nazi League logo, and the first cover of the listings magazine City Limits.

Edward Lear

Edward Lear's skills as a bird artist led to him receiving the patronage of the 13^th Earl of Derby. He was invited to spending time at the peer's seat at Knowsley in Lancashire. The earl had numerous children and grandchildren. Lear spent much of his time with the boisterous Stanley progeny in their nursery. His response to its mayhem was to embrace nonsense.

The time that Lear spent at Windsor Castle had the effect of boosting his self-confidence.

A Book of Nonsense was published in 1846.

Emotionally, Lear was gay. While working in the Middle East he fell in love with Frank Lushington, a younger man. Lushington chose to marry. Lear found this development to be painful. He poured his sadness and joy into his four principal poems: The Owl and The Pussycat, The Dong With A Luminous Nose, Some Incidents In The Life of My Uncle Arly, and The Jumblies.

In 1861 an enlarged edition of A Book of Nonsense was published. It proved to be a great success.

Alice In Wonderland was published in 1865. Lear and Lewis Carroll never met one another. The illustrator was not given to sentimentalizing little girls. He read Alice without comment .

Location: 30 Seymour Street, W1H 7JB (red, brown)

Website: www.edwardlearsociety.org

The London Sketch Club

The Artists Society was set up in 1830. The organisation's members included illustrators such as Sir John Tenniel and Arthur Rackham. It evolved into being The Langham. In 1898 a group of its younger members broke away and set up The London Sketch Club. The founders included Tom Browne and Phil May. In 1957 the Club moved into its Dilke Street premises. In 1976 it stopped holding joint exhibitions with The Langham.

Location: 7 Dilke Street, SW3 3JE (orange, brown)

See Also: ARTISTS ORGANISATIONS

Website: www.londonsketchclub.com

Donald McGill

Donald McGill grew up in suburban south-east London.¹ He worked as a naval draughtsman for the Thames, Ironworks, Shipbuilding & Engineering Company. He also painted and drew for pleasure. An entrepreneur came across his work and realised that it had potential to be used for producing mass-market postcards. McGill was directed to concentrate on his humorous output. His initial style bore the clear influence of Phil May's work. McGill drew much of his inspiration from music hall artistes. In 1907 he became a full-time cartoonist. His stock characters included: attractive young women, battle-axe mothers-in-law, drunken middle-aged men, fat people, henpecked husbands, honeymooning couples, lascivious lads, old maids, and vicars. The principal market for his output was seaside towns. People would send a McGill card of varying sauciness to friends.

In 1939 a shop in Blackpool is reputed to have sold a million McGill cards during a single season. His best-selling cards sold by the million. George Orwell was a fan of the illustrator. In 1941 the writer authored an essay on McGill's work that was published in the literary magazine Horizon.

In the mid-1950s the Conservative government indicated that it disapproved of the more risqu aspect of contemporary society. In 1954 a number of McGill's cards were taken by the police from a shop in the resort of Cleethorpes. This led to the illustrator being prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act of 1857. He was convicted and required to pay a fine and costs. Three years later he appeared before a House of Commons Committee that had been set up to reform the pertinent portion of the law.

McGill died having created over 10,000 separate card designs that had sold 200 million copies.

Location: 5 Bennett Park, Blackheath, SE3 9RA

36 Christchurch Road, Streatham, SW2 3QX

Website: www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-art-of-donald-mcgill https://orwellsociety.com/tag/the-art-of-donald-mcgill

¹. McGill was a descendant of the Scottish-born Anglophone, Quebecker fur trader James McGill (1744-1813), who had founded McGill University in Montreal. (www.mcgill.ca)

The Peace Symbol

Gerald Holtham trained at the Royal College of Art. He designed the imagery for the Aldermaston marches. The French had created the semaphore system. The Royal Navy developed a handheld version. Holtham derived the peace symbol from the semaphore letters for N and D (nuclear disarmament). The symbol was taken up by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. He added additional interpretations subsequently. He came to the view that it should be turned upside down so that it would stand for U (universal disarmament).

See Also: NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Jan Pienkowski

Jan Pienkowski (1936-1922) set up the Gallery 5 greeting cards business. The illustrators whose work it published included Helen Oxenbury.

Website: www.janpienkowski.com

Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter was a skilled botanical illustrator. She did important early work on fungi and lichens. She became one of the first promoters in Britain of Simon Schwendener s idea that lichen were a symbiotic relationship between algae and fungi. In 1897 a paper that she wrote was delivered to the Linnaean Society by George Massey, a mycologist. (She did not hold him in good regard.) Ultimately, she did not publish it.

She was bad at drawing people. Her publisher repeatedly rejected illustrations that included humans.

Location: 2 Bolton Gardens, SW5 0AJ (orange, blue)

Website: https://beatrixpottersociety.org.uk

Heath Robinson

Heath Robinson is the term used by Britons to refer to any contraption or procedure that seems over-complex in relation to the task it is meant to address.¹

Robinson was born in Hornsey Rise and studied first at the Islington School of Art and then at the Royal Academy Schools. His initial ambition was to be a landscape artist but instead he became 20^thC Britain's best-loved comic artist. He produced a number of books as well as commercial work. His output for Guinness the beer company was a notable strand of the latter. Many of his illustrations were of fantastically elaborate machines that were intended to execute the simplest of functions. The world that he created was comforting for his contemporary audience because it implied that the rapid changes that they were experiencing were largely absurd.

Location: 75 Moss Lane, Pinner, HA5 3AZ

Website: www.heathrobinson.org (The William Heath Robinson Trust)

¹. The American counterpart is Rube Goldberg .

Linley Sambourne

Linley Sambourne (1844-1910) was one of Punch magazine s principal illustrators. The authors whom he worked with included the Rev Charles Kingsley, for whom he provided the illustrations for the 1885 edition of The Water Babies (1863).

Location: 18 Stafford Terrace, W8 7BH (orange, orange)

Website: www.rbkc.gov.uk/museums/sambourne-house

Mary Shepherd

The original illustrations by Mary Shepherd made Mary Poppins contemporary to the 1930s. The Edwardian setting of the films was Disney's work. (Her father was E.H. Shepherd.)

Sir John Tenniel

In his illustrations for Through The Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871), John Tenniel spoofed the rival politicians Disraeli and Gladstone as the lion and the unicorn. Gladstone was the lion.

Woodblock Engraving

The Society of Wood Engravers

Website: www.woodengravers.co.uk

David Backhouse 2024