Harry Hudson Rodmell

This robust maritime image, boldly simplified in sach-plakat style and printed in three colours, is the work of marine and poster artist, Harry Hudson Rodmell (1896-1984). He worked for many of the great shipping lines in the 1920s and 1930s producing poster designs in the idiom of the day but, as befits an artist born and raised in Hull, he was always happiest describing the cold and turbulent waters of the North Sea. After the Second World War demand for poster artists declined rapidly and he pursued a career as a teacher and painter of maritime subjects. All his working life was spent in the city of his birth which may explain why he is not as well known as some of his contemporaries. The poster below comes from a memorial exhibition at the Town Docks Museum in Hull in 1984.