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ADVERTS & MAPS NOW ONLINE

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My contribution this time is a little bit of a random ramble due to health and other issues but, hopefully, this will provide something of interest to you all.

MAPS AND ADVERTS
Good news on the two-year project to display many of my carriage maps, advertisements, notices and route diagrams on the Travelling Art Gallery website. They are now all visible online and the additional images and database appears to be working well! The panels date back to 1900 and give a fascinating view of the change in artwork, design and fashion over the years as companies sought to portray their services, routes and marketing skills as well as providing a means to obtain income from their advertising channels. I’ve made sure the images are easily identifiable as reproductions and Boris the spider is hiding in each one, too. I shall seek to give more detail on some of the advertising panels in later articles: the LNER pencil sketch series of adverts or Roland Emett’s Eastern Region notices would be obvious choices. The project has been a labour of love with little or no financial benefit but at least will preserve an interesting area of railway and art history for all and especially for the railway preservation movement. Some samples below..


 RAILWAY POSTER ARTWORKS
Following on from Richard Furness’s very interesting article on posters in the last Railway Collectors Guide, where he featured the BR poster of Cumberland by Honisett – I’ve got the original artwork here (gouache on board) and found it most interesting to see the finished poster compared to the painting. With certain of the carriage print and poster artworks, it is obvious that the printers sometimes ‘beefed up’ areas of blue skies or sea to appear more sunny or alluring. I suspect it was this approach rather than the change in colour being caused by the printing process itself.  

I get quite a few enquiries about artists and artworks and, whilst time consuming, it’s rewarding researching them and often surprising what information is available out there – particularly on the internet. One recent enquiry I received with the cutting below…

“I came across the above cutting while I was researching the artist, Dudley Hardy, and thought you might find it interesting – particularly the reference to the last railway posters he worked on before his death. I cannot relate it to a particular poster or posters – if you can please let me know?”

After researching, I replied…
“It looks to me as if Dudley Hardy only produced the one poster for the LNER – of fishermen in Bridlington in 1922, although it sounds as if he was working on another one for them at the same time when he died. It was interesting to see William Teasdale mentioned – he was a pioneering figure in railway poster commissioning when head of the LNER PR&PO at York and responsible for the work of Frank Mason, Tom Purvis, Fred Taylor etc.
“Hardy was a well sought after, commercial artist and produced many posters for commerce and theatre – often with ladies with full dresses of the period – for D’Oyly Carte and many stage shows. When I was looking at his history, I saw the depictions of Arab men which he often included in his artwork. I recognised the style and it jerked my memory of a Metropolitan Railway carriage advertisement I have for W H Smith which features (for some unusual and unknown reason) an Arab man in the advert. I dug the panel out of my collection and saw the artist’s initials ‘D H’ in the advert – I always wondered who ‘D H’ was – now I know! Hardy died in 1922, so I guess the Metropolitan Railway/ WHS issued this around the time of his death.”

CARRIAGE PRINT MARKET
When fewer carriage prints are listed in railwayana auction catalogues it is noticeable how the prices are much higher – nowhere near the levels of 5 or more years ago, but acceptable in the current financial climate. However, we’ve seen one or two sales recently including GCRA’s Bloxham-style auction where a vast number of carriage prints have been included from a deceased estate. Not surprisingly, the prices were very low, but still managed to sell.

Ebay tends to be mentioned in articles on railwayana hardware but does also provide an extra marketplace for carriage prints and paperwork. Of course, there are sellers on Ebay who have no idea of what items are worth. There are also one or two dealers who know full well what an item is worth and then add 500% to the starting price! Not surprisingly they struggle to sell their items and rely on the odd buyer with little knowledge of the railwayana market.
Although Ebay is definitely at the lower end of the marketplace, as a general rule, reasonably priced items will often sell for higher prices than those put in Thirsk or GNRA auctions as there is obviously a far wider potential buying clientele on Ebay – including those who are often looking for aesthetically pleasing items rather than railway relics. 

FINAL THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
I’ve just returned from the funeral of my good old former boss at Paddington, Western Region HQ, George Rutter. He was from a long line of railwaymen, lived and breathed railways and as I listened to his eulogy in chapel, he obviously still found time for family activities. He was often at auctions when these were social events as well as opportunities for collecting or for business and later became a good friend. How he put up with me indulging myself drawing track diagrams of the Western Region instead of completely concentrating on my designated job of planning block freight train schedules, I’ll never know!

George’s passing came shortly after my mum’s funeral several weeks ago. It’s a cliché I know, but the knowledge that I won’t be taking my collection with me when I’m gone is a sobering, yet potentially positive and constructive thought when considering collecting and the afterlife. One of the best non-railway posters I saw was outside a church. It had a road sign with a yellow criss-cross grid and a coffin, warning “Do not enter the box unless you are sure your exit is clear…”

I will leave you with the following wise saying, having just finished a lengthy probate application,– “where there’s a will – there are relatives…”

Kind regards to all readers.

Greg Norden
http://www.travellingartgallery.com

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RAILWAY ART BLOG

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TRAVELLING ART GALLERIES FILM
I’ve been working with my youngest son, James, putting the hour-long documentary Travelling Art Galleries featuring railway carriage prints, the artists and the artwork on to YouTube. THE FILM IS NOW AVAILABLE TO ALL (FREELY) AS A 10-PART SERIES. It is presented by Nick Crane, the TV presenter of Coast (the most repeated show on BBC!) and yours truly. Nick is a relative of Freda Marston, the only female carriage print artist and is a great enthusiast for the subject. The series is split into 10 small video chapters dealing with the different eras of the subject and there is also a separate trailer to give an overview of the documentary.   

MAPS, ADVERTS & NOTICES
One boom area of carriage panels to buck the trend is the dramatic rise in prices of carriage maps, advertisements, notices and route diagrams. As I mentioned in my Landscapes book, ‘fashion is something that goes in one era and out another’, and maps and adverts, which were once difficult to sell are now much sought after.


After a couple of years hard work, I have finally scanned many of these panels in my collection and will be displaying them on the Travelling Art Gallery website very shortly. They date back to 1900 and some of the images are stunning! From the hand-drawn artwork of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railways and Great Eastern Railway advertisement panels to the LNER 1924 pencil sketch artwork adverts by Henry Gawthorn, Frank Mason and Fred Taylor – they are works of art. Hundreds of these images will soon be available to view.

Several of the Southern Railway and Great Western Railway panels were wonderful designs, too, and Dow’s route diagrams and the Metropolitan Railway & later BR panels were often attractive as well as informing.


RAILWAY ARTWORK
I’ve noticed the increase in railway-related paintings appearing in auctions – particularly in GWRA – and including the leading artists such as Don Breckon, George Heiron, Malcolm Root and others. Some wonderful images and often reflected by the high prices they attain. Artworks of Britain for railway publicity departments, too, by leading artists of their time add to this expanding area of railwayana and bring something new to the collecting arena which is welcome.

Original Poster Artwork in oils by Frank Wootton. In November 2024 GWRA auction

Rush Hour at Heathfield Station. Artwork in oil on canvas by Don Breckon. In GWRA Nov 2024

‘RAILWAY ENGINEERS’ SERIES CARRIAGE PRINTS
One carriage print series which never made it to print was the ‘Railway Engineers’ series. This series of 12 famous engineers (Stephenson, Trevithick, Brunel et al) in 20 x 10 inch format was probably commissioned about 1955 from J W Tonge at Euston, who was also responsible for the LMR History series about that time. The artist responsible was Reginald Smythe, a budding cartoonist, later world famous for his ‘Andy Capp’ comic strips. He used his surname on the Engineers artworks whereas his later signatures were different.


It can be easily seen that the reason for not publishing these prints in the end was the huge amount of text involved in the panel! At least that is my own theory looking at the original designs. Even in the 1950s I find it unlikely that anyone would have spent the time to read all the blurb in these panels. I show all the 12 carriage prints here on my website. I give a short but interesting biography of Reginald Smythe below…


Reginald Smyth (professional name Reg Smythe) was a British cartoonist who created the popular, long-running Andy Capp comic strip. He was born 10th July 1917 in Hartlepool, County Durham, England, the oldest of five children. With his father chronically unemployed, he grew up in poverty, and often referred to himself as a “canvas shoes kid.” He attended Galley’s Field School on the Hartlepool Headland but left at fourteen to take a job as a butcher’s errand boy. In 1936, after a period of unemployment, he joined the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers and was posted to Egypt. He served during the Second World War in the North African Campaign. Promoted to sergeant, he was demoted to corporal for a minor disciplinary offence and was ultimately medically discharged after a stint in an Edinburgh hospital in 1945. During this time he developed his talent for drawing, designing posters for amateur dramatic productions and selling cartoons to Cairo magazines. After the army, he took a job as a telephone clerk for the General Post Office in London. He continued to design theatrical posters in his spare time and was advised to become a professional cartoonist. While retaining his day job, he was soon drawing sixty cartoons a week. In 1950 he went freelance and contributed cartoons for the London Evening Standard, Reveille, Punch, and the Daily Mirror. In 1954 the Daily Mirror’s art editor, Philip Zec, gave Smythe a regular daily cartoon. Then, in 1957, he was asked by Mirror editor Hugh Cudlipp to create a cartoon character for the paper’s Manchester edition. He thought up Andy Capp, a stereotypically lazy, selfish working-class northerner in a flat cap, and his long-suffering wife Flo. Capp’s headgear was inspired by a fellow spectator at a football match Smythe had attended when young, who took off his cap when it started to rain, because he didn’t want to wear a wet cap at home that evening! Andy Capp was soon appearing in all editions nationwide. The first collection of Andy Capp cartoons was published in 1958. The strip became internationally popular, appearing in at least 700 newspapers in 34 countries. Smythe returned to his hometown of Hartlepool in 1976. His first wife, Vera, died in 1997, and in 1998 he married Jean Marie Glynn Barry, but later the same year he died of lung cancer. Smythe was honoured with numerous awards, including Best British Cartoon Strip every year from 1961 to 1965 and other major awards abroad. Died 13th June, 1998

Looking forward to contributing more articles in the future. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for future articles.

CARRIAGE PRINT COLLECTORS MARKET
It is noticeable that in the last couple of years, prices of original prints in the carriage panel market have fallen. I attribute this to several reasons. Firstly, there has been a huge glut of prints coming into auction due to several deceased estates selling very large collections. This has completely oversaturated the market and run of the mill images now struggle to sell or might go for the price of a frame. Secondly, some serious collectors’ who saw the value in the very rare pre-war prints are sadly no longer with us, although prices for very scarce prints do hold up remarkably well. Thirdly, the railwayana market is relatively small and many collectors will have obtained the prints they were after. Fourthly, with tongue in cheek, many homes have run out of wall space…

Fortunately, there are new and younger collectors starting up who appreciate the aesthetic nature of the artwork and are taking advantage of some of the bargain prices.  

Finally, let me wish Stephen Anderson every success in his task in keeping the railway collectors’ flag flying in taking over the Railway Antiques Gazette magazine from Andrew Proctor – now to be called the Railwayana Collectors Guide. First installment in October 2024. Great to still have something like this appearing in the digital age.

Kind regards to all readers.

Greg Norden

www.travellingartgallery.com