Airways 1939

This is a slim pictorial board covered, large format picture book for children published by Blackie in 1939. There are 13 colour illustrations (including the cover) and most of them bear the signature of T E North who has been identified as Thomas Edward North (1916-1985), a lifelong resident of Hull - his career has been well documented at Bear Alley Books. Airways is the earliest example of his illustration work I’ve seen, all the more remarkable for having been produced at the age of 23.  How North broke into the world of book illustration is an unknown story but he did well to find his work published by the illustrious firm of Blackie. Unlike most of his contemporaries, North was unafraid to experiment with unusual angles and unorthodox compositions in search of visual dynamics.  There’s a formal crispness and clarity that wouldn’t be seen in his post-war production.  When his career resumed after war service in the RAF he seems to have specialised in transport related material in ever smaller formats, mass produced pocket sized books for children. The illustration style is conventional for the period - descriptive but nothing more. At the end are two examples of card covered illustrated books and a jigsaw - whether the latter were based on new material or recycled images from books would be interesting to know.

 

Great West Aerodrome

This modest brochure introduces the public to the modern miracle of what was then London Airport in the early 1960s. When it opened in 1929 it was known as the Great West Aerodrome, now it is the misleadingly bucolic sounding, Heathrow. We are told that over 4 million travellers passed through each year – today’s figure is 72 million. This was a time when air travel was only available to the privileged few – the days of cheap flights to distant destinations were long in the future. As the brochure makes clear, for most people the best they can aspire to is observe what goes on as a visitor. Facilities for sightseeing have been provided with this in mind and are described in the text. The colour illustrations have a jaunty Mid-century quality to them. Britain’s major airlines at that time were state-owned BEA and BOAC (the former for flights to Europe, the latter for everywhere else) and two examples of contemporary advertising are shown below.

Flying High with the Post

The Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin holds a fine collection of ships, boats, planes and trains but this exhibit, Große Post-Luft-Kugel possesses a special sense of wonder. It’s a model hot air balloon built from a speculative illustration by Balthasar Antoine Dunker (1746-1807) made in 1783, the year in which the Montgolfier Brothers made their first successful flight. Quick to seize on the commercial potential Dunker described a fantastical vision of a postal service balloon with all the facilities of a small town suspended beneath. Defended by massive cannon and equipped with all the necessities of life it was designed for intercontinental mail distribution. Impossible staircases connect the various pods that dangle in space and include a place of worship, a detention centre for offenders and a livestock unit for food production. A massive cask is also provided - whether for wine or ale is not specified. Observation decks enable privileged passengers to enjoy the exhilarating views. A small pilot balloon is attached for the purpose of forward reconnaissance and last-mile deliveries, enabling the mother-ship to continue its high-altitude cruise. All this and more is faithfully translated into an immaculately detailed scale model that recaptures the wonder of powered flight.

Within a year Dunker’s print had been co-opted by an anonymous British printmaker. The anglicised balloon bore an image of the Crown and a British Lion perched on the top, gripped an Admiral’s flag. There’s a copy in the British Museum online collection – the BM classifies it as a satirical print, poking fun at republicanism. To my eyes it looks more like a simple case of plagiarism.

Al Parker – Up in the Air

Parker is one of the Great American Illustrators of mid-century America in the days when the artists whose work illuminated the pages of Colliers, McCalls, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Ladies’ Home Journal and Saturday Evening Post often became minor celebrities. Some were recruited for product endorsements, some had regular columns of their own and some turned up on the features pages showing readers around their beautiful homes or their collection of vintage vehicles. From his suburban home in New Rochelle NY he produced an enormous volume of print-ready illustrations for editorial and commercial clients. Like most of his neighbours in New Rochelle (who between them accounted for half the published illustration in the US at that time) he was a consummate professional taking pride in offering a wide variety of styles and delivering work on time and to the client’s brief. 

Above all else Parker was a master of asymmetric composition and spatial organisation equally at home with shallow compressed space and deep plunges from foreground to distant horizons. Every physical gesture was analysed and brilliantly portrayed and orchestrated into a complex ensemble of dynamic contrasts. Parker had a long association with American Airlines and this modest selection from his vast output is a good place to observe his compositional skills fully extended as he meets the challenge of composing in a letterbox format. The first two examples are from the 1950s when he was still offering tonally defined forms. The rest come from the early 1960s by which time a flatter style with sharply defined contours that Parker had long deployed in his repertoire had become much more fashionable among his younger colleagues in the illustration business. Cinematic composition at its finest and most convincing. This is a mere snapshot of Parker’s versatility so more posts will follow. 

Leif Peng has a stunning display of Al Parker on his Flickr pages.