Dame Laura Knight (b.1877; d.1970)

Born Laura Johnson in Derbyshire, Knight was encouraged to paint by her artist mother, joining Nottingham School of Art at the age of thirteen. She met her future husband, Harold Knight, here, and they became associated with the Staithes group of early modern painters. Based in a small fishing village in Yorkshire, the Staithes group were known as ‘The Northern Impressionists’, and were active in the last decades of the nineteenth century, through to the First World War. The Knights then studied the Dutch masters in Holland, moving to Cornwall in 1907, first in Newlyn, later Lamorna, where ‘they became central figures in the growing artists colony’.

Knight specialised in combinations of landscapes and figures, causing controversy amongst the local population by painting nude models outdoors. In the First World War Harold Knight was a conscientious objector, and made to work on the land. In 1919 the couple moved to London, although Laura maintained her Lamorna studio. In 1929 Knight was made a Dame for her services to art. Between 1933 and 1934 she designed ‘the form and decoration’ of the Circus range of tableware for Wilkinsons of Burslem, supervised by Clarice Cliff. She also designed the 1937 Coronation Ceramics for Wedgewood and glassware for Stuart Crystal. In 1936 she became the first woman to be elected to the Royal Academy. During the Second World War she was commissioned to do work for the government, including posters for the ‘Lend a Hand on the Land’ campaign. Collections of Knight’s work are held in many museums, including the Tate Gallery in London.

Information taken from: Penlee House Gallery, ‘Dame Laura Knight nee Johnson, Penllee House Gallery and Museum, Cornwall UK’, http://www.penleehouse.org.uk/artists/laura-knight.htm, accessed October 03 2003, Brockhampton Press Dictionary of Design, 1997, p.98.  ’Home Propaganda’, Art and Industry, Vol 32, No.189, January 1942, p.21, See PRO INF 1/637, ‘Contracts with Artists: Dame Laura Knight October 1939-August 1940”, Zimmerman, T. ‘Laura Knight Paintings’, http://www.theo-zimmerman.freeserve.co.uk/lauraknight.htm, accessed October 03 2003

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Pat Keely (d.1970)

Patrick Cokayne Keely was a designer of posters, press advertisements and trade matter. Before the Second World War Keely designed posters for London Transport, the Southern Railway, the Post Office and the British Aluminium Company. Keely designed several posters during the Second World War, including some for the GPO and accident prevention posters for ROSPA and the Ministry of Labour and National Service (MOLNS). His work at this time was ‘distinguished by the use of a few objects or symbols put together in a gay and sprightly fashion to make an odd and arresting visual message’, although the use of rich colour was unusual. Pay Keely also designed work for the British Aluminium Company. He was a member of the Society of Industrial Artists and of the Alliance Graphique Internationale. Keely’s thoughts on poster design are clear from articles in Advertiser’s Weekly. His technique was to ‘deliver the message in shorthand, which is never-the-less understandable to everybody’.

Information taken from: London Transport Museum Database, February 2000, Darracott, J. and Loftus, B., Second World War Posters, 1981 (1972), p.39, Keely, P., ‘Better Posters Can Build Up Public’s Interest’, Advertiser’s Weekly, December 9 1943, p.257

Other Links

• Pat Keely on Artnet
• The Art of War: Pat Keely (I wrote this one)
• LTM Poster Database: Pat Keely

Original Post

Leslie Gilbert Illingworth (b.1902; d.1979)

Illingworth, a ‘well-known cartoonist’ who worked for the Daily Mail and Punch in the 1930s and early 1940s. He drew political cartoons for Punch featuring the likes of Winston Churchill, Adolph Hitler, Anthony Eden, and Neville Chamberlain. He was personally commissioned to do work for the MOI by Edwin Embleton, and designed a series of humorous posters for the Ministry of War Transport, in the ‘Quicker Turnaround’ series.

Information collated from: Anonymous, ‘Illingworth Sketches for M.O.W.T. Posters’, Advertiser’s Weekly, Vol. 115, No. 1,494, January 8 1942, p.36; The Political Cartoon Society, ‘Exhibitions and Events’,http://www.politicalcartoon.co.uk/html/exhibition.html, accessed August 16 2002; Questionnaire submitted by Royall, K. to Embleton, E., Royall, K., ‘Posters of the Second World War: The Fourth Arm of British Defence’, Unpublished M.A., University of Westminster, 1991, p.123

Links:

• Illingworth Cartoons of the 1940s
• National Library of Wales: Collection
• Illingworth: British Cartoon Archive (Cartoons)
• British Cartoon Archive (Biography)

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Bruce Bairnsfather (b.1888; d.1959)

Born in India, Bruce Bairnsfather was educated at the United Services College. He served in the Warwickshire Militia from 1911 to 1914, went to work for an electrical engineering firm, then joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment at the outbreak of war. Severely wounded as Ypres, he was attached to the Intelligence Department as an officer-cartoonist.

Old Bill was Bairnsfather’s most famous cartoon character, with his walrus moustache and cockney origins, he captured the public imagination. It wasn’t until the 1939-45 war that Old Bill was used in government posters, a belated use of his folk hero appeal. During the 1939-45 war Bairnsfather served as an official war cartoonist attached to the US army in the European theatre of war from 1942 to 1944.

Information taken from: Darracott, J. and Loftus, B., Second World War Posters, 1981, p.18

Related Texts: Bairnsfather, B., Wide Canvas, 1939; “The Collected Drawings of Bruce Bairnsfather”, USA 1931

Related Links:

• Bruce Bairnsfather: Official Site
• Bruce Bairnsfather, Cartoonist
• Bruce Bairnsfather and Ole Bill
• Wikipedia Entry
• Fragments from France

Original Post

David Langdon (b.1914)

Born in London, David Langdon studied at the London School of Economics. From 1937 he was a regular contributor to Punch and from 1948 a cartoonist for Mirror Group newspapers. His work has also appeared in Radio Times and Paris Match, and he illustrated a number of humorous books. Langdon’s work appeared on a number of advertising campaigns but the wartime Billy Brown character is probably the best remembered. Langdon was a member of the London Sketch Club in the 1940s.

Information taken from: London Transport Museum Database, February 2000, Farman, J., ‘galleryonthegreen.co.uk’,http://www.galleryonthegreen.co.uk/mainfiles/sketch/history.htm, accessed October 03 2003

“David Langdon, who was born in London in 1914, probably had more cartoons published in “Punch” than any other single contributor, drawing at least 5000 cartoons for that magazine alone over a period of 55 years (1937-92), thereby also making him one of the longest-serving artists ever. His work has appeared widely in Britain and the USA and is notable for its economical, deceptively simple style. As one commentator has put it, Langdon’s world is “peopled by quaint souls who wear a continual look of surprise, who are obviously trying very hard to do their various jobs seriously – and failing. For they all prove themselves to be unconscious comedians”. He also claims to have been the first to introduce “open mouth” into humorous art, has written and illustrated numerous books and contributed to a great many well-known advertising campaigns. David Langdon was awarded an OBE for his work in 1988 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cartoon Art Trust in 2001. This book brings together nearly 200 of his finest drawings from 1937 to 2002.” (Amazon)

See also:

• David Langdon, British Cartoon Archive, University of Kent
• David Langdon, London Transport Museum

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Nicholas Clerihew Bentley (b.1907; d.1978)

Born in Highgate, London, Nicholas Bentley was the son of E C Bentley the novelist and writer for the Daily Telegraph. He studied at University College School in London. He worked as a freelance journalist, author and humorous illustrator. During World War Two Bentley was Deputy Director of the Home Intelligence Unit and editor of publications for the Ministry of Information.

He became a distinguished satirical artist and illustrator, having trained at Heatherley’s School of Art, where Evelyn Waugh was a fellow-student. After unsuccessfully trying for a film career, he joined the advertising department of Shell for three years under Jack Beddington, where his colleagues were Rex Whistler, Peter Quennell, Edward Ardizzone, and John Betjeman. They, together with Bentley, were responsible for producing the Shell Guides, highly regarded in their day, and later collectors’ items. He drew cartoons for the Daily Mail from 1958 to 1962.

Of the three men who had most influenced him, his father-in-law Hastings ‘was the foremost, the other two being Jack Beddington of Shell, and Stephen (later Lord) Taylor, under whom he worked in the home intelligence department of the Ministry of Information in World War II. ‘Social historians of the middle decades of the twentieth century will find Bentley’s drawings invaluable, conveying, as they do, quietly and accurately the times in which he lived and the people with whom he associated’.

Information taken from: ‘Nicolas C. Bently’, Poster Database, London Transport Museum; Muggeridge, M., ‘Bentley, Nicolas Clerihew’, National Biography, 1995. (Taken from the IHR Database.)

Related texts: Bentley, N. A Version of the Truth, 1960

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Herbert Mayo Bateman (b.1887; d.1970)

Born in Australia to English parents who owned an export and packing business, at the age of two Bateman’s family returned to England. Bateman studied at the Westminster School of Art, Goldsmith’s College at New Cross, and with Charles van Havenmaet. His first cartoons appeared in The Royal Magazine and The Tatler. He began contributing to Punch Magazine in 1906, and in 1912 did a weekly series of sketches for the theatre page of the Sketch. Prior to the First World War, Bateman belonged to the London Sketch Club, who would meet to sketch and discuss sketches. Advertiser’s Weekly noted that Bateman’s work was ideally suited for double-crown posters as the work was dependent upon detail, ‘the exact expression on a face, the objects on a dressing-table’, etc. At the age of 21 he had to decide between comic art work or full-time painting. Advertiser’s Weekly considered Bateman’s decision to continue with cartoons as important, although his work would have not been as familiar to advertising students as David Langdon or Bert Thomas, despite previous work for Guinness and Lloyd’s Bondman Tobacco.Invalided out of the First World War in 1915, having spent time with the London Regiment, Bateman became known for his cartoons for Punch. In the twenties and thirties Bateman made his name through The Tatler, The Sketch and The Bystander, specialising in the depiction of angry outrage caused by anti-social or unthinking behaviour: ‘His cartoons, typified in The Man Who… series, depict with frenzied exaggeration the uproar caused by social bloomers.’ Between the wars he worked on film and poster advertisements for firms such as Lucky Strike, Guinness, and Moss Bros. Bateman is described as one of the first graphic artists to adopt a cinematic approach. One critic argued that the Bateman episodic format was “closely parallelled in the silent movie, such as the slow build up to a climax or denouement, and a new emphasis on gesture and facial expression”. In the Second World War, Bateman designed posters for the Ministry of Power and the Ministry of Air Production, and the Ministry of Health, including his most famous posters: ‘Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases’. Bateman published several books including A Book of Drawings (1921), More Drawings (1922), Bateman(1931) The Art of Caricature (1936) and On the Move in England (1940). Henry Mayo Bateman died in 1970.

Information taken from: ‘Henry M. Bateman’, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTbateman.htm; Darracott, J. and Loftus, B., Second World War Posters, 1981, p.20; ‘Herbert Mayo Bateman’, Poster Database, London Transport Museum; ‘Artist Who Got A Poster Idea While Running for a Bus’, Advertiser’s Weekly, April 13 1944, p.44; Farman, J.,http://www.galleryonthegreen.co.uk/mainfiles/sketch/history.htm; Caption on exhibit E.158-1973, displayed at the Power of the Poster exhibition, held at the V&A, 1997.

Related Texts:
H.M.Bateman, 2001
Bateman’s most famous drawing “The Man Who…” series of social gaffes and faux pas first appeared in “Tatler” in 1912. Working in pencil, pen, ink and water-colour, he was a master of the cartoon story without words. “The Prion Cartoon Classics” are an on-going series show-casing the finest and funniest comic cartoonists of the 20th century from Britain, Europe and the United States. (Taken from Amazon)Jensen, J. (ed.),  The Man Who…and Other Drawings, 1975/1991; The Best of H.M. Bateman, 1987; The Man Who Was H. M. Bateman, 1982; Bateman, H.M., H.M. Bateman by Himself, 1937; Bateman, M., The Man Who Drew the Twentieth Century, 1969.

Related Links:H.M. Bateman, Cartoonist

The Formation of the Ministry of Information (PhD Extract)

Extract from PhD thesis. © Rebecca Lewis, 2004 (Extracted from the 3rd Chapter). Please note that this information is COPYRIGHTED, so please reference this URL, or the thesis itself.

3: Commissioning, Design & Distribution, with a particular focus on the MOI and the first posters produced

This chapter focuses on the production and distribution of government publicity in the Second World War. The Ministry of Information (MOI) was expected to be the central governmental publicity machine, an institution that sought to regulate its population through discourse. In this chapter we briefly consider its formation and role, including how it drew on previous experience, and gained the power to influence British propaganda, but concentrate more explicitly on the publicity producing divisions. Within this chapter, we reflect upon how the MOI looked to promote self-regulation amongst British subjects, providing them with information, in order to produce what Foucault would term ‘docile’, ‘useful’, ‘functional’ and ‘productive’ bodies contributing to the British war effort. Having seen how the MOI generally worked, and the place of the poster division within that, we will move on to consider how the division commissioned, produced, distributed and displayed posters throughout the war, focusing particularly on the posters produced in the first few weeks of the war.

Sidney ‘George’ Strube (b.1891; d.1956)

Born in Bishopsgate, London, Strube first worked as a draughtsman for a furniture company before joining a small advertising agency. He studied at the John Hassal Art School after which he began producing cartoons. He sold his first work to the Conservative and Unionist magazine in 1909, soon after which he began producing a weekly cartoon for Throne and Country. From 1912 to 1948 Strube was the Daily Express’s editorial cartoonist. For many of those years, the paper had the largest circulation in the world, and Strube became the most popular cartoonist of the inter-war period. He ridiculed the Nazis and thus found the Daily Express being banned in the nineteen-thirties in Germany, and himself of their hitlist during the Second World War. Strube was a notable member of the London Sketch Club in the 1930s.

Information taken from: ‘Political Cartoon Society’, http://www.politicalcartoon.co.uk/html/exhibition.html, Accessed 16 August 2002, and ‘Sidney Strube’, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jstrube.htm, Accessed 16 August 2002; Farman, J., ‘galleryonthegreen.co.uk’,http://www.galleryonthegreen.co.uk/mainfiles/sketch/history.htm, accessed October 03 2003. See alsohttp://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/000264.php, accessed 28 January 2005.

Related Texts:

• Benson, T., Strube: The World’s Most Popular Cartoonist, 2004
• Political Cartoon Society Sidney Strube Exhibition (2004-5)

See original post.

E McKnight Kauffer (b.1890; d.1954)

Edward McKnight Kauffer was born in Great Falls, Montana. From 1911 to 1913 he studied evening classes in art at the Mark Hopkins Institute, San Francisco. In 1913 he spent six months at the Chicago Art Institute, at which time he attended the controversial ‘Armory Show’, which ‘introduced modern European art to a sceptical US public’. Also in 1913, he studied painting in Paris (and Munich), sponsored by Professor McKnight of the University of Utah, whose name he took in gratitude. On the outbreak of war in 1914, Kauffer moved to London, and in 1913 he was commissioned by Frank Pick to design his initial poster for London Underground, the first of many.Kauffer exhibited as a painter in England until 1921, when he transferred his attention to commercial art. Associated with the Cumberland Market Group and the Vorticists, this painting experience stood him in good stead. He ‘insisted that commercial art could and should reflect the progressive styles of the period’, and was familiar with modern art, particularly influenced by cubism, fauvism, art deco and futurism (including his famous ‘Flight of Birds’, used as a Daily Herald poster in 1919. In 1924, Kauffer wrote The Art of the Poster, and in the 1920s, he became chief poster designer for London Underground, for whom he designed over 140 posters. He also designed posters for Shell, British Petroleum, Eastman and Sons, and Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. In 1921, Kauffer designed a book jacket for Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians, the first of a series of designs and illustrations for Nonesuch Press, and Faber and Gwyer. Kauffer also designed stage designs, murals and textiles, including a 1929 rug exhibition with Marion Dom, to become one of his two wives. In 1930 he became art director of the publishing house Lund Humphries.

In 1937 the Museum of Modern Art in New York held a one man exhibition of Kauffer’s work. In March 1939, Kauffer wrote some of his thoughts on poster design for Advertising Monthly. In 1940 Kauffer returned to work in New York, producing several posters for Greek War Relief and the US Treasury. Post-war Kauffer designed for American Airlines between 1947 and 1948, and the New York Subway Advertising Co. Inc. and publisher Alfred A. Knopf from 1949. On the occasion of his death, Havinden discussed the influence of Kauffer on graphic design in Art and Industry, including eighteen months working for Sir William Crawford’s advertising agency (where Ashley Havinden also worked). Crawford was ‘well-known as an advocate of modern advertising design’. Exhibitions of Kauffer’s work were organised by the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1937, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London in 1955. A collection of his work as a commercial designer and illustrator, from 1913 to 1950, is held at the National Art Library.

Information taken from: Livingston, A. and Livingston, I., Dictionary of Graphic Design and Designers, 1992, p.110, London Transport Museum Database, February 2000, quoting Riddell, 1994, Darracott, J. and Loftus, B., Second World War Posters, 1981 (1972), p.38, McKnight Kauffer. E., ‘I have not returned to my earlier poster style, but…’, Advertising Monthly, March 1939, pp.14-15, Havinden, A., ‘E. McKnight Kauffer’, Art and Industry, Vol. 58, No. 344, February 1955, pp.38-43, National Art Library, ‘AAD Holdings’, http://www.nal.vam.ac.uk/aad/aadalpha.html, accessed August 28 2003

Related Texts:

• Haworth-Booth, M., E.McKnight-Kauffer: A Designer and His Public, 1979

See original post. Read more about him on the LTM site.