Terence Conran’s Memories of Dora Batty – Dora Batty as a Person

23.05.2023

MY PREVIOUS REVIEW OF THE DORA BATTY POSTER PARADE AT THE LONDON TRANSPORT MUSEUM:

https://diaryofaloneman.home.blog/2023/04/07/dora-batty-poster-parade-london-transport-museum/

(note: This analysis has been done for non-profit purposes of education, and makes ‘fair use’ of the publication cited for purposes of analysis and comment in the public domain).

1946 – Sir Terence Conran was a student of Dora Batty’s at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London in textile design (he wanted to be a textile designer at first). He mentions her in his autobiography. this is an attempted analysis of the writing – a psychological study of Dora Batty (as artist) through Conran’s recollections.

CONRAN TURNED UP FOR HIS INTERVIEW WITH DORA BATTY WITH ‘repeat-pattern drawings, a book of pressed flowers (Suneel’s note – maybe this is why she liked him so much and gave him a chance – she loved drawing flowers), paintings, a few fuzzy photographs, ceramics, and bits and bobs of metalwork and woodwork.’ (26)

Source: Sir Terence Conran, Terence Conran: My Life in Design (Conran Octopus, 2016) – ALL REFERENCES IN BRACKETS REFER TO THIS SOURCE.

(NOTE) GOOGLE BOOKS: (Sir Terence Conran) founded the Habitat chain of stores in England. Starting in 1977, his U.S.-based Conran’s stores helped launch the home furnishings retail boom. He is the author of thirteen books and was knighted in 1983 for his service to British industry and design. He lives in London, England.

DORA AS ‘WONDERFUL’ AND WARM-HEARTED

Conran describes Dora as ‘wonderful’ (26). She stands out as a unique (and warm-hearted) person in contrast to ‘a bunch of stern middle-aged ladies’. Dora gives Conran a chance and lets him pass the interview even though he didn’t have much knowledge of textiles (26). This reveals various aspects of Dora’s personality:

Conran remembers Dora fondly. He has no reason to lie about what she was like. This indicates that she had a welcoming and friendly, nurturing aura as a teacher
She was good at recognising talent in someone like Conran who would become a famous designer
She would nurture promise if given a chance – even in an unconventional way – Conran says he was actually surprised to have passed the interview (26). The lack of conventionality and following strict rules of ‘objective’ assessment shows that Dora had good intuition, flexibility and discretion and judgement (reminder – look at how influential Conran is)
Not everyone gives people a chance in life – Dora was a good, generous person
Dora was compassionate to the young and inexperienced – and patient enough to teach such students even if they didn’t know that much
Conran says he was shy (26) – Dora looked beyond social conventionalities and was impartial enough to give Conran a chance on his art, rather than judging him as a person
GENDER: After he passed the interview, Conran was the only boy in a class of 33 women. Just like the London Underground gave Dora a chance as a woman in a male-dominated industry, she gave Conran a chance as a man in a female dominated industry. She was fair and inclusive and challenged the social norms in favour of meritocracy and giving someone a chance (to change the status quo).

STRICT AND CAPABLE
‘Dora Batty was very strict but she ran the course superbly. She saw that her students really had something to do at every moment they were there…’ (26).
Why was she strict? Maybe because she cared about art and design so much. But this also indicates a controlling side to Dora. If you look at her art, it is all very controlled and restrained and ordered.
Dora as overachiever student? She piled on work on the students – maybe this is because she worked very hard herself (ceramics, textiles, posters, etc. – it takes a lot of work, effort and learning to master all these different disciplines).

MULTICULTURAL, RESOURCEFUL AND HISTORICAL – THE MUSEUM-GOER

‘One of the most fascinating things she arranged was a twice-a-week, behind-the-scenes visit to the historic textiles collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington, where there are vast halls with hundreds of thousands of prints and textiles from all over the world…’ (26)

Dora was an avid museum-goer – it’s fitting that she is in a museum through her art
Conran was there at the school in 1946 – Dora had negotiated the teaching at the V & A in the immediate post-war period when there were limited opportunities – she was incredibly resourceful
The first poster with Persephone and Hermes reveals her interest in historical costume and textiles, as well as her multiculturalism (ancient Greece)
Dora had good connections – she was a people person. Imagine how hard it would be to arrange a behind-the-scenes at a museum today, especially such a prestigious one – people wanted to help Dora. Remember, she was a woman in a man’s world, too… Even more of an achievement
The initiative of Dora: this is quite a creative solution to education – to share world-class resources that most people don’t have access to for her students and to give them a multicultural and global education

THE INSPIRER/THE MUSE/THE GOOD TEACHER

‘Dora brought in a whole raft of young designers and artists to broaden our horizons and inspire us.’ (26)

Dora is interested in contemporary art – see her Art Deco influences in posters such as the RAF poster. She kept up with everything that was happening (to improve the craft – conscientiousness, awareness).
Dora likes the energy of the young and encourages them. Not only did she teach youngsters, give inexperienced youngsters like Conran a chance, but also, she promoted the work of young designers and artists. Compare this to the current climate: she used her power for good and for a meritocracy. She challenged the status quo in favour of the new and change (all the while also giving her students a historical, world culture with the V & A). She is generous, embracing, inclusive, creates a stimulating intellectual environment of like minded souls.
Remember, she is choosing these new artists and designers because they could inspire – great artistic discretion and knowledge of people.

The Infinite Colourful Light of the Moving Kaleidoscope – The Spaces In-Between, Tottenham Court Road

The Infinite Colourful Light of the Moving Kaleidoscope – The Spaces In-Between, Tottenham Court Road

08.04.23

FREE ENTRY

Art by Rupert Newman (light artist) and PixelArtworks

It happened unexpectedly. A fine example of serendipity, the right place at the right moment. I had just spent a few hours browsing in Foyle’s and a small independent second-hand bookshop and was just making myself towards Tottenham Court Road. I was musing over the books I had seen and I was thinking to myself that I certainly wasn’t rich enough to have all the books that I wanted to read and to have to keep in my own personal library and to share with my kids. That privilege was reserved for the billionaire or the British Museum.

And there it was. The Infinite Colourful Light of the Moving Kaleidoscope… An awe-struck mass of bodies within a space carved out by futuristic light, right next to the station.

The space is described as a ‘digital portal’ and we are meant to ‘discover a prismatic new experience’. The location of the site is important because it is ‘In-Between’ spaces. One of the installations (or ‘spaces’) reacts to your body as you stand before it. The display is in front of you, above, around four walls. It is a type of immersive, interactive art (four dimensional, they sometimes call it). The experience is touted as semi-religious and the installation is described on a panel as a crystalline cathedral of light’.

So this is why I call it ‘The Infinite Colourful Light of the Moving Kaleidoscope ‘. Light, of course, is associated with Christianity, with enlightenment, progress and truth, things that capitalists like to give lip service to when they put us out of work because of computers and technology (it is always right to rail against the so-called technological progress of the capitalists, since this is the weapon of their hubris). I was in a Chapel service recently and they called the Christian God’s kingdom a place of ‘infinite light’. Art is akin to the Christian religion in our age, perhaps its best substitute. When you go to an art gallery, there is a hush like there is in the chapel. There is a reverent lowering of the eyes before the icons of the age, just as they gaze up at the icons in a religious setting. All the visual display is impregnated with a colossal and sublime meaning, with divine beauty that is not of this earth… For art is considered to be of the spirit for some (not for me, it is still earthly and profane).

As I moved within this computer generated, geometric space, encased in the ingenuity of man and machine, within light, art, animation, music, the energy of the crowd, I was certainly impressed. It was a novel experience. It was a beautiful experience. Yes, it was even a beautiful experience.

Yet where was the meaning behind it all? I read the panels for each of the three different spaces. There were the described themes. Firstly, ‘A Step Beyond’, the immersion in another digital world. Yet how different was it from the contemporary enveloping of the subject in the age of the computer? Was the artwork just priming us as digital subjects, a repetition of what was happening in our technologically mediated reality? Secondly, ‘Transcendence’. Yes, the art is beautiful. The beautiful forms of nature are rejuvenated in an encounter with geometry. The translation of the subtle mathematics of the world into the mathematical language of geometry. But what does the viewer get from this? A strict regularisation and stylisation of the beauty of what is for what can be imagined is the staple of most art, which is abstract at heart (even within supposed realism). But what is the status of this new abstraction for us now and why are we being placed within it in this space? Is awe for nature to be replaced for the awe of what man and machine in unity can now do, what imagination and computer code can achieve? ‘Tessellations’ was more of the same thing: animated geometric patterns filled with light. A world of code that surrounds us, like the Matrix, changing, transforming, not sending out any obvious message, not allowing any thought but awe…

Perhaps the difficulty is not the lack of the message but the lack of the training we have to try and understand abstract art and the elusiveness of meaning in abstract, geometric art itself. Perhaps I do not understand the proposed religiosity behind the installation. Certainly, geometric art figures in Islam in Mosque designs and calligraphy as an expression of faith. Perhaps there is a feeling of endless harmony and connection with things that the piece is supposed to evoke. I did not get this feeling. I got the beauty. I did not get the sense of the digital sublime which all the spaces were meant to evoke. I did not feel engulfed, threatened (perhaps the wonders of the technology are supposed to threaten to usurp man). I lack fear – Punjabi men are afraid of nothing and no-one. Especially not code or geometry filled with light. For me, the exhibit was a good waste of time just before I got onto the Tube, but not an inspirational experience or one which provoked much thought, except for the vague idea that I could get together a venue for something like it and make a bit of money off it… To be really honest, it was like being in a screensaver.

Dora Batty Poster Parade – London Transport Museum

07.04.2023

You can see all of the posters in the Poster Parade here:

https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/the-collection

1^st Floor, London Transport Museum

Adult ticket: 24 pounds, Concessions including students: 23 pounds (ANNUAL PASS)

REVIEW

While I have many interests in life, there is one game that has always captivated my attention. My friends, it is THE Game. The game of interpretation: finding meaning, making connections, excavating the context, trying to understand what others are trying to express underneath a rigmarole of deceptive diversions. I have played this game quite seriously, having studied for an English Literature degree and then having pursued doctoral studies in the subject (then publishing books and articles). The game is all-consuming and unending. I lie in bed at nights replaying conversations, working over sentences for half an hour at a time if they are important enough to warrant it in the conversations I have during the day. To play the game, I have studied all these subjects at university level: legal studies, English literature, history, psychoanalysis, philosophy, anthropology, criminology, sociology, psychology, the history of photography, feminism, Marxism, deconstruction, Postcolonialism – and now – art history. Besides forays in my spare time into mythology, archaeology, cryptography and the decoding of languages, language learning, politics, animal intelligence, evolutionary psychology, biology, and the physical sciences which reveal how humankind attempts to fathom the cosmos.

Why do I mention The Game? I survey the posters in the London Transport Museum Poster Parade because I love to play it. And above all, the most enticing thing is a mystery, a puzzle, a seeming dead-end, what first comes as a blank wall. As I have admitted so much, it will now do to admit more. It was a genuinely exciting moment to encounter an unknown female artist who has not received much critical attention and about whom I could make a big contribution towards understanding. The subject was the enigmatic Dora Batty…

Little is known about Dora’s life. She is known only for her professional roles and her output. Like other women artists, she has been neglected, never achieved the fame of her male compatriots… As a result, one cannot bring biography to a study of her artwork. Neither can one be misled by what others have written, which seems to be a particularly abhorrent current practice of the scholar, the interpretor and the guide. One imagines a woman that never made much of an impression. One cannot even visualise her appearance because a photograph has not even been recovered. For a moment, I had a fantasy of tracing her family genealogy so that I could try and contact any living descendants that might have a diary, a photograph, written records or objects of some description so that I could have something else than the art. In the game, it is permitted to cheat… What a delicious daydream: an expedition, an adventure, new people to meet, new avenues to pursue, a quest of interpretation…

But I am left to just looking at the work and thinking. Justice demands a scrutiny of the woman artist’s works, a redressing of her dismissal by (White) Man. Let us begin.

The first exhibit that meets us in the Poster Parade is ‘The Underground brings all things nearer’. We are in the conventional grounds of Greek Myth. As it clearly states, the poster celebrates ‘The Return of Persephone’. She is being rescued from the underground by Hermes. Dora loves to tease. The obvious play is upon the concept of the ‘underground’. While it signifies Hades and hell, it is also obviously referencing the Tube. For a poster commissioned by London Transport, this is clearly a subtle bite at the hand that feeds her, the delicious tease of a mocking and ego-defeating woman. From the Underground, hell and the tube, Persephone is emerging. The concept of the poster is that from the Underground, which we imagine as the realm of the dead, life and fertility is emerging in the form of Persephone. But there is a moment of feminism in that period of emerging women’s rights and the Suffragette movement – Persephone (woman oppressed, captured, imprisoned) is rescued from her controlling husband (the LAW, Death, Sovereignty, POWER…) Now, there is the question. What is the biographical aspect, what is the women’s movement? The Suffragettes were around at this time and they were fighting against the patriarchal laws of marriage, with its enclosure of the woman in the domestic realm. But is there something else in Dora’s life? Bearing the hallmarks of its time, Persephone is rescued by Hermes, a man… There isn’t total emancipation of the woman. Is there a new man in Dora’s life at this time, an extra-marital affair…? However, one also remembers that Hermes is the protector of travellers, the god of roads… He is dressed as a traveller, of course, with winged sandals. There are subtle resonances for the highly educated and the classicists in this poster about travel. Dora is clearly classically educated… The game, my friends. One has to learn the mythology of the world to play it…

The tragedy with the poster is that Persephone still had to spend months of the year in the Underworld – there is no ultimate freedom from MAN AS KING AND DEATH… Ambiguity and despair is always there in the background. Is this a realistic assessment of women’s politics at the time (and still now?) Or is it the acceptance that Dora cannot release herself from her marriage (was she married, or is the poster simply about a fantasy of emancipation)?

Now, let us talk about the flowers. Flowers flood the posters. Persephone is also holding a flower. Is the flower sex (the flower is a sexual organ which is ‘penetrated’)? Are we witnessing sexual liberation in Dora’s psyche? The implicit love triangle in the first poster – Hermes, Persephone, Hades. Travel itself as sex (a holiday romance, perhaps?). The fantasy of sex rather than its achievement from a repressed woman? Dear Dora, why do you not write what is the case? If the hypothesis that the flowers are sex is right, can it be confirmed by some of the other posters? [It is worthwhile to mention here that there are other suggestions. Not only have female artists painted flowers throughout art history, as a ‘woman’s genre’, but also that women themselves have been described as flowers throughout history and particularly guilty were the Victorians and those around at the start of the twentieth century – flower as woman herself in this art, or rather her sexual body and her body as a body of desire…)

In ‘Bluebells are out’, an anonymous female caresses the flowers lovingly. Her lips are upon them, her hand clenches them. Her senses are engaged. She smells them. So we have touch, the sexuality of a kiss, intoxication with the scent. Full sensory engagement. She also looks directly into the flowers. Is this look at the flower and sex what the viewer is expected to understand and echo? Woman playing with her own sex and sexuality? Is this the revealing mirror of subjectivity at the heart of the image? Let us be Freudian and make an insinuation about how the hand is holding the phallic bunch of stalks of flowers at the bottom of the image…

In ‘Crocuses are out’, woman swoons over the flowers which she caresses again with her hands. With her eyes shut in ecstasy and Lacanian jouissance… The flower she smells is pinkish red – the colour of sex…

So, perhaps we have an exhibition of a woman artist that is pursuing liberation, including sexual liberation. Perhaps we are seeing a woman fighting against the Law and the figure of the King for a new tomorrow and for ownership over her own body and desires… Perhaps we see Dora the fighter. But a jaded fighter. After all, what is the fight of the artist? It is true that many of the Suffragettes were artists, a disproportionate amount. Was the main fight in the visual arts and against the visual culture of the Law and the King, Oppressor Man?

Let us leave identity politics for a moment. Let us talk about Dora as she is in my favourite works of hers. I will write first about the interesting pattern in ‘Whitsuntide by Underground’. The artist has woven together many moments of leisure into almost a textile pattern (she worked in textiles). The composition is crowded and flooded with energy. People are joined in small communities by their pursuits, families, friends, athletes. They are also integrated in nature and the countryside through trees, fields and water, animals. There is a harmony of leisure and nature, life and the world, an inter-connected and unbreakable pattern. And let us not forget the female body’s interaction with the flowers in the early posters – nature is a body that unites with woman’s body. Woman is nature, humankind is nature – the celebration of the animal self that we have come from that lived in trees…

Similarly, ‘There is still the country’ shows the woman’s body wedded to the (phallic, it must be said) tree. The whole scene is blown about from a strong wind and enriched with the sun which seems to emanate from the woman’s head, her creative force and mind. There is pure energy, enlightenment (emancipation)… The leaves fall from the trees – there is transformation, the relentless but cyclical turning of the time as in Hindu thought… What is dead and dying is to be shed to make space for what is living….

So is this Dora? Or is this merely Suneel’s Dora? One makes an argument. One seeks to persuade. But more than that, one seeks to know. In the absence of clues, one looks to a Suffragette context. In the absence of a photograph, one tries to plumb a mind. The Dora exhibit is interesting and important because it brings these thoughts to mind. It asks why a woman of such talent has no place in thought. It seeks to rectify this wrong. Dora’s art is stylistically very Art Deco. I do not know if she followed the movement, or how much she contributed. I do not know how important she is in the history of Women’s Rights for making art that explores women’s issues and attempts to rescue them from the ills of sexual repression (if sex is the theme that I have not invented for our Dora). And finally, one makes an admission. The interest, the thread that I have followed is that Dora is Modern Woman. Someone that I do not understand – if anyone does. To understand the mind of this challenging and reticent creature, one often has to gaze at the expressions that she leaves about her in the world. And to form an opinion, one has to dare a conjecture, even as a man – which might wholly be wrong and is entirely contestable, of course…

You can see all of the posters in the Poster Parade here:

https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/the-collection

List of Posters:

Dora Batty, 1923 – The Underground brings all things nearer
Dora Batty, 1925 – From country to the heart of town
Dora Batty, 1924 – Foxgloves, Kew Gardens
Dora Batty, 1925 – From town to open country
Dora Batty, 1921 – Travel with the children
Dora Batty, 1930 – Season ticket, travel cheaply, save money
Dora Batty, 1927 – Bluebells are out
Dora Batty, 1927 – Blackberry time
Dora Batty, 1935 – Special shows of tulips
Dora Batty, 1927 – Crocuses are out
Dora Batty, 1927 – Daffodils are blooming
Dora Batty, 1932 – Regents Park to see the rose garden
Dora Batty, 1928 – Buy a season ticket
Dora Batty, 1924 – Survivals of the past, Painted Hall
Dora Batty, 1932 – RAF display, Colindale station
Dora Batty, 1936 – Trooping the colour
Dora Batty, 1924 – Survivals of the past, Yeoman Warders
Dora Batty, 1934 – Easter
Dora Batty, 1938 – Out and about by London Transport
Dora Batty, 1926 – Make yours a General holiday
Dora Batty, 1931 – Whitsuntide by Underground
Dora Batty, 1926 – Hampton Court by tram
Dora Batty, 1926 – There is still the country

Hallyu the Korean Wave Review – Victoria & Albert Museum Exhibition

01.04.2023

https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/hallyu-the-korean-wave

At home, they sit in a neglected and increasingly dusty pile – with my other language learning books picked up mainly from charity shops – or the internet when the owners lost their interest in learning them (14 languages in total and building). Untouched, they are marked out for future study when my life is not just about work and academia, carefully compiled: a set of Korean language books. I picked them up in a free hotel book sharing point in a country where they have many Korean workers (it is not Korea, my friends).

Although I never got onto the Korea loving bandwagon with ‘Gangham Style’ or ‘Squid Games’, and I didn’t watch the film that won the Oscars (‘Parasite’), I have taught several Korean people when I used to volunteer to teach English to refugees and migrants over five years. I watch some K-Pop, although it is just one band called (G)-IDLE as I like watching the young women dance and perform and I enjoy the cinematography of the music videos. So it was with this light acquaintance in need of improvement and because I wanted to see the Friday Late at the V & A that I meandered my way at the end of the night into the ‘Hallyu the Korean Wave’ exhibit.

The exhibit is exciting, eclectic and vibrant and speaks to the young. Inundated with interest, the walls showcase Korean film, music, beauty and fashion. All of the senses are awakened and rejuvenated by an immersion into a colourful Korean cultural life.

When you go in, you are confronted with several screens showing ‘Gangham Style’ and its parodies. Of course, this song is synonymous with K-Pop and is probably one of the only contemporary songs that everyone in cities around the world probably knows. We get to see the audacious pink suit that Psy wore for the music video. But the surprising thing to learn is that the song and the suit mock South Korea’s ‘hyper-consumerism and material pursuit’, using the district of Gangham as an example. The suit is a sneer at what the elites wear in that area and the iconic dance moves are snipes at posers and wannabes that emulate that kind of lifestyle.

If Korean culture is currently chic, then the next section of the exhibit makes us reflect on the historical miracle of how a colonised, war-torn country which was ravaged by the Cold War and also ‘one of the most violent conflicts in modern history’ in the Korean War of 1950 has followed a ‘remarkable trajectory’ to become a ‘leading cultural powerhouse by the early 2000s’. The formula seems to be ‘governmental control, daring strategies and IT innovation’, alongside quick hands and quick minds.

I will write about the parts that excited me the most in what followed on the journey through the massive space that the exhibition enfolded. A long term fan of athletics and gymnastics, I was entranced by the Volunteer guide uniform for the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. The clothing draws inspiration from the national costume which is called hanbok. The outfit is beautiful, graceful, an accomplishment of functional style inter-weaved with the Olympic spirit and colours. It is the perfect metaphor of endurance, of a people that have kept their traditions while becoming truly international, even though enmity and colonisation attempted to destroy their way of life. Here, as elsewhere in the exhibition, I was reminded of the affinities of Korea’s history with India’s. In fact, there was even a Hindi film poster which showed a pirated (‘adapted’) Korean film, which influenced my finding of affinities with my motherland even more.

It was also a surreal experience to see the wig worn by Choi Min-sik in ‘Oldboy’. This is probably the most memorable Korean film I have watched. When I was immersed in this filmic universe, I just assumed that the wig was the actor’s real hair. In the exhibit, removed from the face, the wig was patently, even insolently artificial. Yet it still teemed with an energy, almost like that of life. The make up and hair director of the film, Song Jong-hee intended to infuse the wig with wildness to convey the ‘feral emotions’ and the effect of the years of incarceration on the protagonist of the film. To me, raised in Hinduism and Sikhism, where hair is sacred and the god Shiva is known for the strength of his hair, the hairstyle raised the resonance of India, religion, power, feelings hard to express or even describe.

A particularly interesting section of the exhibition was the exploration of beauty standards in Korean culture, since the nation is a ‘global trendsetter’ in this area. The historical background until the 1910s (perhaps longer?) is seven hundred years of maintaining beauty as a ‘moral obligation’ as attractiveness symbolises not only social status, but also virtue.

Where did I spend the most time in the exhibition? I sat before a big screen watching a compilation of snippets from K-Pop videos, admiring the crystal sharpness of today’s video cameras, the lightning flashes of Korean dance moves and the stunning physical beauty of the people. It was intoxicating. Yet, as I watched, the critical part of my mind kept on turning over the question of whether what I was watching was something authentic and organic, something different, or just indoctrination and influence from the Western world, a parroting of the Western music video. I am still not sure.

Surely, ‘Hallyu the Korean Wave’ is one of the most memorable exhibitions that I have been to. I was also pleased to see that the exhibition seems to have been put together from Korean descent people, which seems to give it the authenticity that is lacking from Orientalising Western depictions of Asian people such as Indians. I learned a general history of modern Korea, was amused, inspired to learn more, ever more determined to one day make a serious foray into the language. I felt the unity of Asian culture as a man of Indian descent, almost a sense of belonging. Out of the three exhibitions I went to in the V & A that day, the exhibition was my personal favourite. I never felt even a moment of boredom in it and my attention was focused entirely on the exhibits.

https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/hallyu-the-korean-wave

‘Green Travel’, London Transport Museum: Poster Parade Review

(Poster Parade lasts for approx. 3 months before it is changed)

1^st Floor, London Transport Museum, Covent Garden

Entry to the London Transport Museum: £21 for an annual pass (£20 students and concessions)

08.02.2023

All the posters listed at the bottom in the Poster Parade can be searched for and viewed here:

https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections

I don’t think it is any exaggeration to say that the most important and constant preoccupation of our times is the environment and how we can save the world from the damage that we have done to it. Following the recent, successful, ‘Green Journeys’ exhibition in the Transportorium of the London Transport Museum (LTM), the site is now hosting a ‘Green Travel’ Poster Parade on the first floor. The Museum’s consistent championing of the environmentalist cause has genuinely inspired many youngsters and I remember a visitor telling me how much her daughter missed the ‘Green Journeys’ exhibition when it was gone. She said it had been her daughter’s favourite space in the whole museum because of its educative power.

Public transport has been hailed as one of the solutions that can help to minimise environmental damage to the planet through the economical use of energy and resources. As the title and introduction of the exhibition suggests, there has been much investment in the tube to ‘make London cleaner and greener’. As Londoners know, there has been a historical practice of encouraging commuters to use their cars less, the advertisement of journeys to clean, green spaces of countryside outside of London, as well as a promotion of walking and cycling so as to ease congestion and keep the air breathable. While many of the strategies have borne fruit, such as in the reduction of coal burning and industrial pollution, the public transport infrastructure still has problems to face in reducing pollution and creating a zone with clean air. The saving of the world is still very much a work in process.

The historical range of the images in the Poster Parade is from the early twentieth century in the 1910s to the twenty-first century and the 2010s. The styles and subject matter range from realistic landscapes, to illustrations of space and the planets, edited photographs, games of text and image, visual animalistic metaphors of transport as taxis are literalised as snails, and the conversion of the London landscape into bicycle parts. Quirkiness, comedy, creativity – even horror as the effects of smoke pollution are made evident in the imagined future of a child’s photographed face – all these collide together in the exhibition, whose one sure strength is variety.

The quirkiest image is probably the one of the taxis as snails by Nick Hardcastle, ‘Or take the Tube’. The black cabs of London are famous throughout the world, as is ‘the Knowledge’ that their cab drivers boast after years of learning, but these instantly recognisable facts are given a surprising visual metamorphosis. The familiar is manufactured into the unfamiliar, even the Freudian uncanny. The snail shells add to this impression as Freud called the uncanny the ‘unhomely’ and the shells are their homes. Faintly sickening, the snail taxis glisten with a disgusting mucus which symbolises the dirtiness left by the motor car as its imprint on the world and its journey. The clustered ranks of molluscs, an identical parade, suggest a dreary and unthinking conformism.

I have two favourite images. The first is ‘Good for you green for London’ (2010) by Rachel Lillie. This is the winning illustration in ‘The best of contemporary illustrators’. The illustration depicts London’s journeys through the experience of the cyclists and the message is the promotion of ‘the benefits of cycling for our health and the environment’. The display notice adds that ‘TFL cycling initiatives such as free and tailored cycle skills sessions are teaching safer ways of navigating the city’. The space is imagined as a leaf unfurling through time, with its veins as pathways to famous London landmarks. I liked the image for two reasons. First of all, this seems to be the only illustration by a woman in the collection, if one assumes that the other illustrations and posters are all by men (they may not be, many of them were presented with ‘Artist Unknown’, which was a slightly frustrating experience). Diversity is still a real challenge in illustration, as I know from my own experience as a digital artist, and it is good to support those of us who are examples of diversity and have got a little recognition. Secondly, like the artist, as she says on her website, I am also interested in the depiction and conceptualisation of space, especially London. An interesting connection is drawn in the illustration between the red bus and the cyclists who are shaped in a blood red. The cyclist moves in the same ethical space as the public transport vehicle, as a being that creates a cleaner and greener city. The famous London landmarks are shrouded in the night as black outlines while the cyclists are illuminated by a light that blesses the good. Perhaps the suggestion is that the conventional vision of the city has to change and the things that were once considered important have to yield to the renewed experience of stewardship we face in the age of environmental calamity.

My second favourite poster is ‘Carfree Carefree’ by Abram Games (1967) which is given a renewed life in this contemporary exhibition in this contemporary world. The poster and the title are the same, white letters shaped like a bus against a background of purple, red and orange tiles. Typography is one of my own preoccupations as a digital artist and letters shaped like images act upon my senses with an unrivalled seductive power. The letter bus in the poster hurtles past a small car in the background. The demonstration is of the strength of the bus in relation to the individualised, little car: public transport versus the individual, social and public civic responsibility in the age of environmentalism versus the selfish fixation with the material possession of the car and its solitary amusements. As with the other posters, the interest is in how a public transport corporation converts its competition with private forms of transport into an ethical mission to save the entire planet and the people and life within it. Financial competition does not always have to be selfish after all, it can be of the people and for the people, against the luxury and convenience of the individuals that won’t participate in the group.

The two messages that hit hardest were ‘One full bus equals forty empty cars’ and ‘Each year we cover nearly 1 billion miles in the car on journeys of less than a mile’ (1998). It is always facts that can hit hardest. These facts also contextualise the aim of London transport to get people fitter and get out there walking and cycling. Of course, some have mobility issues, but for the majority of people, it is laziness and the convenience and instant gratification culture that is choking the planet.

My overall impression of the Poster Parade is that it is successful artistically and in terms of its content and importance. And in terms of inspiration for change. The historical sweep is illuminating because it reminds us that people in London have always cared about its clean air and to eliminate the pernicious effects of pollution. Yes, we are facing an environmental disaster. But the good have always fought against this with technology and with the right morals. There is hope and no need for despair. They, the good, will always fight for a better world. Yet, there is no ‘triumphialism’. The Poster Parade acknowledges that there is still much to do and much to fight for. That elusive dream of ‘Green Travel’ is still a work for the making, even though it is the most alluring and important dream of our times.

List of Posters in the Exhibition (all searchable at: https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections)

Anonymous, ‘Golder’s Green’ (1911)
Maxwell Ashby Armfield, ‘By Underground to fresh air’ (1915)
Gwynedd M Hudson, ‘Spring Beckons You’ (1929)
Alfred Leete, ‘Nightwatchmen’ (1928)
Anonymous, ‘Clear the Air’ (1938)
Charles Sharland, ‘Light, Power and Speed’ (1910)
Anonymous, ‘London’s Tramways’ (1929)
F Gregory Brown, ‘By Trolleybus to Kingston’ (1933)
Abram Games, ‘Carfree Carefree’ (1967)
Nick Hardcastle, ‘Or take the Tube’ (1987)
Austin Cooper, ‘Bicyclism – the art of wheeling’ (1928)
Transport for London, ‘London – made for cycling’ (2007)
Anonymous, ‘Get ready for Prudential Ride London’ (2015)
Rachel Lillie, ‘Good for you green for London’ (2010)
Easy Tiger Creative, ‘Cycling for Pleasure’ (2016)
Anonymous, ‘Don’t Choke London’ (2001)
Anonymous, ‘London Car Free Day’ (2002)
London Transport, ‘One full bus equals forty empty cars’ (1998)
London Transport, ‘1 billion miles in the car’ (1998)
Anonymous, ‘Cleaner Air for Greater London’ (2007)
Anonymous, ‘Hydrogen powers rockets’ (2014)

Winter Wonderland Poster Parade. London Transport Museum.

Winter Wonderland Poster Parade.

London Transport Museum, 1^st floor.

Entry: 21 pounds for an adult yearly entry. 20 pound student yearly entry.

05.12.2022

You can see all the posters here via a search of terms for your own virtual exhibition (Full Searchable Exhibition Catalogue given at the end of this short outline of my impressions as a viewer):

https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/the-collection?f%5B0%5D=collection_type%3APosters

If I cast about in my mind for my most immediately accessible winter memories, there are images of Christmas and snowballs (with flashes of pain in some cases), hot chocolate in an ice skating park, women in smart, expensive coats on the London streets, lavish adverts on television, frenzied shopping during New Year’s sales, and an annoying range of mediocre songs that are played, unaccountably, every single year.

Many, if not all, of these topics are to be found in the Winter Wonderland Poster Parade on the first floor of the London Transport Museum. Certainly, shopping plays a major role in the collection, including a depiction of the Winter sales. For both critics of capitalism and its supporters, there is something for everyone – anonymous subjects wandering around in a state of anomie in between the stores, a cornucopia of street signs arranged artistically to show a virtual map of the sales in London, depictions of women consumers done in a futuristic style (make of that what you will).

The introduction to the poster parade proclaims that there is a focus on ice skating, country walks, shopping and the exploration of historic landmarks during the winter months. The parade emphasises the practical purpose of the posters which encouraged passengers to take off-peak journeys or appealed to our comfort-loving nature by persuading us that it was warmer to travel by public transport in London.

I have fond memories of ice skating, including watching my female companion surreptitiously distancing herself from me and laughing maniacally as I desperately clutched and groped at an innocent female bystander so I didn’t fall down on my first try. So I particularly enjoyed looking at the portrayals of ice skating. The poster that stood out most to me was ‘Ice Skating’ by Charles Pears, printed in 1928. It shows a beautiful woman engaged in a graceful movement across the ice, her face obscured in shadow, her scarf elegantly billowing against the pure snow behind her. She is entranced in the flow of the figure, lost in her skill to the world and its impurities… Such is the beauty of this season and of ice skating itself, one of the most beautiful of pastimes.

The other poster that I quite liked was ‘Winter’s Discontent Made Glorious’. Against an ominous, sublime, inhumane cloudscape, we see a train in which the windows are filled with scenes from dining, shopping and the theatre, spaces crowded with fashionable people. On one level, the poster reminds us that some of our liveliest and happiest scenes have been in winter. On the other hand, the fact that the train and its illuminated scenes are to plunge into the dark abyss of a tunnel which would extinguish all light seems to refer to the depression that can come upon us in sun-starved winter. It is a conceptually balanced design.

My overall impression of the poster parade is that it contains striking works of art and a good range of different artistic styles. I was interested in how optimistic the collection is about winter. We all know that winter can bring on sadness, and the posters all try to counter this impulse with a positive, upbeat message of hope and happiness. The posters have also inspired me to take a few winter walks, when traditionally, I have avoided long walks out in the cold in the countryside. The posters are intriguing as they show us the emotional appeal of Christmas and winter shopping in the recent past, how they act as a psychological booster during what can be very trying months and also because of the beauty and complexity of the designs and messages that they convey. As such, the poster parade really is what it says it is: a winter wonderland to which all of our senses and feelings are invited.

Exhibition Catalogue

Winter’s Discontent Made Glorious – Anonymous, 1909
Brightest London is Best Reached by Underground – Horace Taylor, 1924
Winter Cavalcade – Margaret Barnard, 1938
Empress Hall – Earls Court – Walter Goetz, 1937
Winter in the Country – Harry Stevens, 1965
Winter Sales – Quickly Reached – Compton Bennett, 1926
Winter Fun – Skating – Anna Hymas, 2016
Winter Sales – Edward McKnight Kauffer, 1924
It is Warmer Below – Frederick Charles Herrick, 1927
Winter Country Walks – Hans Unger, 1958
Hampton Court – Hanna Well, 1963
Ice Skating – Charles Pears, 1928
Winter Walks – Laura Knight, 1957
Keep Warm – travel Underground – Kathleen Stenning, 1925
Out and about in Winter – Molly Moss, 1950
Shop in Town – Leith, 1928
Winter Sales – Artist Unknown, 1920
Winter in London – John Burningham, 1965
Winter – Paul Catherall, 2006
Winter Visitors – Clifford Ellis and Rosemary Ellis, 1937
Brighter London for Winter Sales – Harold Sandys Williamson, 1924

Tom Eckersley Poster Parade

09.11.2022

London Transport Museum, Covent Garden

Price – 21 pounds annual pass regular ticket for the museum (20 for students)

REPRODUCTIONS AVAILABLE AT THE MUSEUM’S ONLINE SHOP.

ALL ECKERSLEY WORKS ACCESSIBLE ONLINE AT:

https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/the-collection?f%5B0%5D=collection_type%3APosters

Although many Londoners don’t realise it, Transport for London has one of the biggest collections of specially commissioned artworks in the entire world. At the London Transport Museum, the thousands of posters in the archive are narrowed down to a select few for the Poster Parade which can be found on the first floor of the museum, behind some of the historic vehicles. It is one of my post Art History Open University degree ambitions to write a monograph on the collection of posters which bear illustrations and advertisements concerned with the world wars, destinations inside and outside of London, architecture and seasonal greetings which nestle amongst safety warnings and ticketing offers.

Most alluringly, the current exhibition boasts the work of Tom Eckersley, a twentieth century poster designer. The introduction to the exhibition summarises his signature style: “bold, bright colours and flat graphic shapes”. Personally, I think Eckersely owes much to Matisse the master, including the use of cut out colours in collages, the simplification and stylisation of figures and the obsession with the brightest hues.

Eckersely worked through the 1930s to the 1990s and managed to design over eighty posters for London Transport. At first, he worked in collaboration with the artist Eric Lombers. The exhibition describes him as ‘transforming commercial art’.

When Eckerseley was working in the 1930s, ‘posters were a hugely effective form of publicity’ the exhibition relates, although the challenge was to compress information so that it could incite further curiosity and relay compressed information in milliseconds: ‘a strong message with a simple design’. To quote the exhibition again, to achieve these ends, Eckerseley employed ‘minimal text’, conveyed messages ‘through pared-down graphic elements and bold blocks of colour’. My personal view, however, is that the posters play quite complicated visual games. I don’t see them as a visual reduction of information. They take quite a bit of decoding to understand the message shown and to understand the flight of imagination that Eckersely took to create the design.

Overall impressions of the Poster Parade? The artworks are visually stunning, richly coloured and immensely memorable. Eckersely really is a master of the poster genre. It is a delight to see the things. However, the short exhibition suffers from repetition, where nearly identical posters are displayed, and there is a certain fragmentariness where a fish poster is shown with the other half (another poster) missing. Having said that, the final word must be that the posters are beautiful, historically significant and therefore interesting because they deal with issues raised by the World War and show how heritage in London has been promoted before.

Finally, from my perspective as a digital artist that often uses flat, bold colours in my compositions, the exhibition is successful in that it shows how beautiful art can be when it uses simple geometic elements to build up its own language and communicate with the viewer. Although Eckersley uses a much more polished style than my own spontaneous ‘calligraphy-art’, the affinities are astounding, as you can see from a poster I designed recently below, and which I will finish this short summary of my impressions with: