Studio: international art (79.1920)

THE POSTER REVIVAL. I: MR. E.

Mcknight kauffer. a 0

BEFORE the present revival it was
something like twenty years since art
entered at all largely into the character of
our hoardings. In those days the pioneers
were two artists, both of whom have since
acquired great reputations as painters.
Under the pseudonym of the Beggarstaff
Brothers, Messrs. James Pryde and William
Nicholson produced a series of posters that
have never been rivalled either before or
since. Several other artists followed, and
the best work of Mr. John Hassall was pro-
duced about this time. Posters became
objects of collectors, and a magazine de-
voted to the art of the poster appeared.
But as so often happens with us this pro-
mising movement failed, and only suc-
ceeded in inspiring a permanent movement

abroad. Germany marched in triumph on
the road we had made. Some years ago
at an advertisement exhibition in West-
minster, admiring crowds gathered round
a collection of German posters, asking why
it was that these were so much better than
our English examples. The reason is that
in Germany first-rate artists (like, for
example, Professor Franz von Stuck, the
President of the Academy) are not above
designing for posters or any other applied
art. But as the “ Frankfurter Zeitung ”
pointed out at the time of the above
exhibition, the whole poster movement
began in England, and the artists whose
work inspired the German artists were
neglected in England. As so often happens
in this country we do not begin to appre-
ciate our art until it comes back to us in
the form of foreign imitations. Constable
and the Barbizon school, Gordon Craig

140

LONDON ELECTRIC UNDERGROUND
RAILWAY POSTERS. DESIGNED BY
E. MCKNIGHT KAUFFER