The Return of Pattern

Translated articles · Eme n 2 · 2014 100 Martin Salisbury · pp. 100-103. ISSN 2253-6337 Martin Salisbury · pp. 100-103. ISSN 2253-6337 101 Translated articles · Eme n 2 · 2014 quite as rigid as it is today. He commissioned them as a kitchen-table medium for children, to a serious paper. Most famously, she was commissioned by the to produce a wide range of material, illustrative and means of image creation for professional artists. visionary art director Frank Pick at the London Pas- The return of pattern decorative, for use by the printing company in their Bawden’s genius as a designer/ image-maker lay in senger Transport Board to design the seating fabric in british graphic arts trade advertisement material as Curwen forged radi- his ability to take complicated subject matter from pattern for use on all of the seats on London buses cal changes at the press to become a leading light natural or man-made origins and to simplify and re- and tube trains. This iconic design, known as ‘’Mo- in the revival of high quality printing in the 1920s. organize into pictorial pattern. It was therefore only quette’, was in use for decades. The Curwen Press also printed many of the most natural that, alongside his painting and printmak- Barnett Freedman’s work has also enjoyed a re- important illustrated books of the period. As one ing, he would become involved in wallpaper and vival of interest in recent years. Freedman, born to of the Harold Curwen’s early advertising brochures other pattern design. Along with John Aldridge, a a poor Jewish immigrant family in the East End Martin Salisbury proclaimed, their intention was ‘to put the spirit of Royal Academician painter who lived and worked of London, suffered poor health for much of his joy into printed things’. in the village, Bawden set up a small venture to de- relatively short life (he died at the age of 56), but Professor Martin Salisbury It was Bawden and Ravilious whose work was at sign wallpaper. The designs were made with repeat achieved great prominence as a painter and illus- Course Leader, MA Children’s Book Illustration. the forefront of this movement and in whom there prints of linocuts, created in repeatable units and trator and was especially celebrated as a master Director, The Centre for Children’s Book Studies. is particularly fervent interest at the present time. then printed in sheet form lithographically by the lithographer. With the encouragement of Harold Cambridge School of Art The two met after Bawden left Cambridge School Curwen Press. They were then sold by the compa- Curwen, he became highly skilled at autolithog- of Art in 1922 to take up a scholarship at the Royal ny, Modern Textiles. Titles of the designs included raphy, a process whereby the artist works directly College of Art in London. Here he met Ravilious, Sahara, Pigeon, Riviera and Leaf. All were highly onto the lithographic plate, drawing each colour Studied illustration at Maidstone In recent years in Great Britain there has been an who was arriving from Eastbourne School of Art pictorial in nature. Bawden had a long and prolific separation by hand, rather than relying on me- College of Art. He has worked as an upsurge of interest in the work of our graphic art- on the south coast, also on a scholarship. Despite working life until his death in 1989. chanical separations. His depth of knowledge of illustrator and painter ever since, ists of the mid Twentieth Century. The output of being polar opposites in terms of temperament, Eric Ravilious, in contrast to his friend, crammed colour layering and separation was evident in his contributing illustrations to books these artists spread comfortably across the fine they became firm friends. Enid Marx and Barnett a great deal of work into a much shorter life. Both many book jacket designs and the commission to published by most of the major UK and applied arts. The lasting legacy of the work Freedman were also studying at the Royal College he and Bawden were appointed as Official War Art- design the 1935 postage stamps to celebrate the publishers as well as designs for ad- of these artists and printers is becoming increas- and they were all taught design by the painter, Paul ists by the War Artists Advisory Committee. The Silver Jubilee of King George V. Such a fastidious vertising, television and magazines. ingly evident as we view the current landscape of Nash, who referred to the group of students under purpose of this venture was, on the one hand to and organised approach design lent itself well to In recent years his work has focused British illustration and the current mania for all his tuition at the time as ‘an outbreak of talent’. build a body of creative work that visually reported the design of pattern papers. Freedman’s designs mainly on the area of children’s book things ‘retro’ shows no sign of abating. This can After graduating, both Ravilious and Bawden and commented on the war, and on the other hand for Curwen are characterized by his familiar use of illustration, painting for exhibition be seen in all areas of design but is perhaps most picked up commissions fairly quickly and exhib- to give some protection to important artists of the softly graded tone from the lithographic crayon. and writing on the subject of draw- evident in home furnishing and illustration. ited paintings regularly in London. In the mid time. However Ravilious died in 1942 when the The lasting legacy of the work of these artists ing and illustration. Pattern, design, print, ‘pattern papers’, illus- 1920s, the two rented an imposing Georgian house military plane in which he was traveling on a mis- and printers is becoming increasingly evident as In 2004, Martin wrote Illustrating trated books, applied arts. together in the village of Great Bardfield in Essex. sion off the coast of Iceland disappeared without we view the current landscape of British illustra- Children’s Books, a major guide When each of them later married, for a while the trace. He too had exhibited a fundamental sense of tion. The process of printmaking is becoming in- to the practice and theory of the In recent years in Great Britain there has been an two couples shared the house, before Ravilious and design and pattern in his work. Perhaps because of creasingly popular again, albeit often in tandem art form. Play Pen: New Children’s upsurge of interest in the work of our graphic art- his wife Tirzah eventually moved to another village his short life, and the fact that he lived it to the full, with digital processes when used in commercial Book Illustration was published ists of the mid Twentieth Century. This has mani- nearby. Over a period of time, a number of other a sense of myth has grown him. illustration. The print and design quality of books in 2007. The book is a selective fested itself both in the publication of monographs artists moved into Great Bardfield or villages very During her time at the Royal College, Enid Marx is clearly growing ever more important as the book survey of new trends internation- on a number of the artists of the time and in the nearby. Many of these were former students of the learned wood engraving from her fellow student, stakes out its territory as a tactile, aesthetic owna- ally in children’s book illustration. work of many present day artists and illustrators two artists, who were themselves now teaching at Ravilious (generally referred to by his peers as ‘Rav’ ble artifact, as distinct from screen-based media. Children’s Picturebooks: The Art of that recycles and reinterprets many of the motifs the Royal College of Art. In time, a community or ‘The Boy’). Marx possessed none of the innate This is most clearly evidenced in the emergence of Visual Storytelling, written in col- and preoccupations of that period, which is some- of artists grew in the area and they began to hold flair or panache that is so evident in Ravilious’s work independent publishers such as Nobrow. Nobrow laboration with Professor Morag times referred to as Twentieth Century Modern. summer ‘open studio’ exhibitions- each of them but was blessed with an intellectually and artisti- evolved from a screen-printing studio and still Styles is published in 2012. Artists of the period whose reputations have espe- exhibiting their work in the homes and studios. cally curious mind. In her later book illustrations, produce some books in this manner under the im- cially grown and been re-evaluated include Edward These summer exhibitions became something of a what she lacked in fluent draftsmanship is compen- print Nobrow Small Press. These publications are Bawden, Eric Ravilious, Enid Marx, Barbara Jones national phenomenon with up to ten thousand visi- sated for in rustic charm and a strong sense of pat- limited to editions of 100. The company has now and Barnett Freedman. They are regarded as pe- tors arriving in the village. Buses and special trains tern. It was this latter concern that dominated her expanded into children’s picturebooks, with their culiarly British in nature and are generally not well were laid on from London Liverpool Street station. long career, spanning over 70 years. From an early new imprint, Flying Eye Books. All of the books known beyond these shores. The output of these art- This group of artists was at pains to point out that age she was an avid collector of decorative objects, are characterized by exceptional attention to print ists spread comfortably across the fine and applied they were not a ‘movement’, sharing a particular fabrics, French patterned papers, designed things.

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