Propaganda

For many years people have discussed what propaganda is. See propaganda models that were defined for the PhD project, and some propaganda links.

Origins of Propaganda

The term propaganda originated from the ‘Congragatio de propaganda fide’ (congregation for propagating the faith), a Roman Catholic organisation founded in 1622 for the purposes of missionary work. By the end of the First World War, it had become an unsavoury term: the Americans believed that they had been ‘lured’ into the war through the use of British propaganda. The Nazis appeared to believe the same, as Goebbels had a great admiration for British propaganda, and modelled the German Propaganda Ministry upon it. Note that the British had a ‘Ministry of Information’, not a ‘Ministry of Propaganda’ – and a great deal of thought was put into naming the Ministry, with Persuasion not thought to be strong enough, and Propaganda thought to be too strong!

Defining Propaganda

The word ‘propaganda’ is defined as “The systematic propagation of nformation or ideas by an intrested party,  esp. in a tendentious way to encourage or instil a particular  attitude or response. Also, the ideas, doctrines, etc., disseminated thus; the vehicle of such propagation.” (OED Online, Accessed 11^th April 2000)

Encarta defines propaganda as the “dissemination of ideas and information for the purpose of inducing or intensifying specific attitudes and actions. Because propaganda is frequently accompanied by distortions of fact and by appeals to passion and prejudice, it is often thought to be invariably false or misleading. This view is relative, however. Although some propagandists may intentionally distort fact, others may present it as faithfully as objective observers. A lawyer’s brief is as much propaganda as a billboard advertisement. Education, whatever its objective, is a form of propaganda. The essential distinction lies in the intentions of the propagandist to persuade an audience to adopt the attitude or action he or she espouses.” [Encarta]

And of course, these days, no “description” would be complete without Wikipedia and Dictionary.com!

No Known Information

The following artists all signed Second World War posters. I recognise that some signatures may have been mis-read, but after extensive searches on the internet, and through various journals and books, I have no further information on them. If you are able to provide any information on the following artists, I would be very grateful.

• A. Brener
• A. Zinekeisen
• A.S.
• A.T. Ped
• A.T. Peel
• Afghan
• Alfred L. Cook
• B.
• Baib
• Batty
• Berry
• Betts
• Binger
• Bowmar
• Brinkley
• Brockbank
• C.M.
• Charles Barker & Son Ltd
• Charles Wood
• D Vesper
• Daftsmra
• Davy
• D’Egville
• Desmond Moor
• E. Oliver
• F.
• F. Bernard Clark
• F. Gardner
• F.G.A. Scott
• Faa
• Farr
• Foss
• Fraser
• G. Burr
• G. Harrington
• Garner
• Gee
• George Maunsell
• Gibson
• Goe
• Golden
• Groum
• H. Harigon
• Harold Woodburn
• Harr, Lugment & Leopold
• Herrick
• Holmes
• Hopper
• I.T.B. Inns
• Jeffreson-Petts Studio
• John H.T. Wall
• John T Roe (a miner)
• K.G. Chapman
• K.S.
• Kath Henderson
• Kem
• Kukrinsky (Soviet artists)
• Lebon
• Lee Elliot
• Lorraine Masquelier
• Lowen
• Lucas
• M.
• M. Zulawski
• Mackinlay
• Marc Stone
• Maroc
• Mary Tunbridge
• Miles Hamper
• N. Eckersley
• N. Radlov (Soviet artist)
• Navy
• Noke
• Noll
• Norman Wilson
• Nunney
• Ny
• Oliver Payne
• P.
• Peter Morgan
• Peter Ray
• R.T.P.
• Rapier
• Rawls-Fougasse
• Reeves
• Rix
• Robbe
• Rooke
• Ron Jobson
• S.
• S. Weiwalewicz
• Saward, Baker & Co
• Seward Osmund
• Shep
• Showell
• T.P.
• Tomlinson
• Tony Speers
• Various (Various artists worked on this poster)
• V. Goryaev
• W. Krogman
• W. Meyer
• W.R. Chapman
• Zygmunt Leopold Harrowie

James Fitton (b.1899; d.1982)

Known as a painter and designer, Fitton was born in Oldham. His father was an iron plater and union leader, and his mother a mill weaver. He was educated at the Watersheddings Board School until 1913, having learnt to draw after losing time at school after a bungled operation which left him partly deaf. Fittons’ father was involved in the Fabians, and through this Fitton met James Keir Hardie and Emmeline Pankhurst. Fitton worked for six year sorting textile samples in Manchester, whilst attending Manchester Art School in the evenings. He was taught by Adolfe Vallette, one time assistant to Degas, and Sam Rabin and L.S. Lowry (with whom he drew the countryside) were fellow students.

Fitton went to London in 1921, where he was employed by the printer J. S. Riddell for eighteen months. Fitton learnt his trade on the job, although he left when offered the opportunity to design a large mural. Afterwards, one of his jobs involved designing a poster for the Russian trade delegation, which brought him under police observation just before the Arcos raid. Fitton designed oil paintings for film stills, then worked for two years as an illustrator on an adventure magazine, which gave him time to visit London museums. In 1935 he attended evening classes in lithography at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, and ‘became absorbed in the world of young London artists’.

In 1928 he married Margaret Cook, a fellow student, and painter and illustrator. Moving near Dulwich, Fitton took a job with a small advertising agency, Vernon’s. In 1930 he was appointed Art Director of Vernon’s, a post he held for fifty years converting it into one of the most successful pre-war advertising agencies. The same year he also became a member of the New English Art Club, the London Group, and the Senefelder Club. Fitton, along with Misha Black, James Boswell, James Holland, Pearl Binder and Clifford Rowe were founders of the AIA in 1933. Those in the AIA were ‘appalled by mass unemployment, Nazi aggression, and the threat of war, and inspired to action by the graphics of Krokodil, Simplicissimus, and the drawings of Grosz’. The AIA produced cartoons, posters, banners, pamphlets, and exhibitions, and ‘by 1935 virtually all respected London artists had become members’. The revival of satirical drawing was initiated by cartoons drawn, from 1934, by ‘the three Jameses’ in the Left Review. This revival continued through the war, and ‘led to a new age of British caricature exemplified by Gerald Scarfe and Ralph Steadman’. Fitton was therefore already well known before the war as a left-wing cartoonist, and had done designs for the Empire Marketing Board (EMB).

Fitton was not a modernist, but was sympathetic to advanced European Art, and was one of few British artists ‘who revolutionised commercial graphics by an infusion of modernism, and brought the art of the poster to a peak in the 1930s’. Fitton was commissioned by Frank Pick in 1937 to design two posters for London Transport and, in 1938, murals for the United Kingdom government pavilion at the Empire Exhibition in Glasgow. He undertook free-lance magazine and newspaper illustration work in the 1940s, and produced many designs for the MOI and MOF in the Second World War . He was also the chief assessor for the Ministry of Education diploma in design from 1940 to 1965 at the Royal Academy.

Information taken from: Darracott, J. and Loftus, B., Second World War Posters, 1981, p.27; Campbell, p.155; and Gore, F., ‘Fitton, James’, National Biography, 1990. (Taken from the IHR Database.)

Related texts: John Sheeran, ‘James Fitton, an Appreciation’ in catalogue James Fitton RA 1899-1982 (Dulwich Picture Gallery, 1986); introduction by
Sidney Hutchison in catalogue James Fitton RA 1899-1982 (Oldham Art Gallery, 1983).