John Hassall - Poster King

John Hassall is having a moment.  There’s a comprehensive exhibition of his work at the Heath Robinson Museum in Pinner (ending on August 29) accompanied by a new book, The Life and Art of the Poster King by Lucinda Gosling (Unicorn, 2021).  This recognition is long overdue - there has been a persistent reluctance on the part of museums to exhibit the work of graphic artists whose output fell, for the most part into the category of what used to be called commercial art.  The sense that the association of art and advertising is unworthy of close study never quite goes away, along with the gulf in status between Fine Art (engages the higher faculties) and Advertising Art (vaguely disreputable, appeals to the coarser instincts). Curiously as state patronage of the arts declines the art world has been forced into an ever closer funding relationship with the world of business and finance whose tolerance for sponsoring work that questions their activities often wears thin resulting in hidden pressures to focus on work that more closely aligns with corporate interests.  In this context the straightforwardly transactional nature of the work of artists like Hassall can seem less compromised.

The book is superb - the author has unearthed some rarely seen items and chosen to display in depth rather than showcase prime (and often over-familiar) examples. The selection of thumbnail images is generous and judicious and gives a much better impression of the range of Hassall’s output than I’ve ever seen before. Two column text blocks and visual material are well balanced and make for clarity of design. Pictorial boards, illustrated endpapers and a stitched-in bookmark make an excellent package and the absence of a dust-wrapper is something to celebrate.  Hassall’s productivity was a match for Tom Purvis and some of his drawing has the toughness and muscularity of that of Purvis.

Hassall produced all the artwork for this colouring book for children in support of the Belgian Relief Fund in 1914.  The Belgian nation has never been so popular with the British public as it was in the first year of the Great War.  An intensive propaganda campaign in the popular press, demonising the German invaders for the ruthless cruelty inflicted on the civilian population created a great wave of public sympathy, of which this publication was one manifestation.  It is striking to see the extent to which it combined philanthropy with commercial interests - every page had a business sponsor whose consumer products were publicised in Hassall’s drawings in the hope that their virtues would be embedded in young minds as their clumsy brushwork stuttered across the page.  It was presented as an alphabetic sequence with accompanying versification.  Allusions to military campaigns can be found but for the most part the patriotic note is one of restraint.  Given the audience, images of children predominate and the war is very much off stage. None are especially memorable with the possible exception of the sturdy British youth who poses defiantly in his Pesco underwear with hairbrush at the ready, fully prepared to die for King and Country.

 

Gelsenkirchen 1914

Abraham Auty, the writer of these postcards, arrived in Gelsenkirchen from Yorkshire only 2 days after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo – in just over a month Germany would be enemy territory. His first postcard, addressed to his son in Wakefield was written and postmarked June 30th. 1914. Assuming he is the Abraham Auty whose birth in 1860 was registered in the West Yorkshire village of Emley, he would have been 54 years old at the time he was dispatched by his employer to the Ruhrgebiet to demonstrate an automatic coal cutting machine to prospective customers. In the 1911 census Auty was described as a coal miner resident in Morley, Yorkshire. To have been entrusted with this task suggests he was well regarded by his employer. It represents one small episode in the immensely important trading relationship between Britain and Germany that in the previous decade had developed to the point where each nation was the other’s major trading partner. Britain at that time still retained a formidable manufacturing capacity but it had been comfortably overtaken by that of Germany – the difference, just as today, was made up by financial services where London held the advantage.

On the first postcard of a colliery in Gelsenkirchen, Abraham assures his family of his safe arrival, explains that there are 27 collieries in the town, and says he expects to stay between 2 and 3 weeks. The following Saturday Abraham writes home again, spreading his pencilled message across a handful of postcards consigned to the mail in an envelope. He is missing the comforts of home and the absence of tea occupies his mind (“But, But, But, No Tea, Tea, Tea”). On Sunday he observes the local population at leisure with a disapproving eye. “Sunday I am sorry to say is a day of amusements – acrobats, wrestling, racing and parade(s). Church and state militarism all round.” Abraham places a high value on religious observance and writes, “Last Sunday I went to Protestant and Catholic (worship), singing Latin hymns and Litany. Burning incense till we could not breath.” He finds the hot and thundery weather unsettling and even the familiar presence of the Salvation Army brings no comfort – “They are as bad as the rest for talk – you cannot tell what they say any more than interpreting thunder.”

When he gets to work, Abraham sends a full account to his family as follows. “I have cut for the first time today. We are at an inclination of 25 degrees. Machine would shatter to face bottom if not prevented by timber, etc. Our difficulty here was getting oil to the crank pin. I think we have overcome it as I have cut 20 metres German (over 20 yards English) without oiling machine. So if it cuts downhill and keeps its oil we are then very likely to sell 4 machines to go to Silesia, 400 miles away from here.” With the Great War about to break out we can safely assume the Silesia deal never came to pass. Abraham’s impressions of life in Germany are never less than fascinating and expressed in lively prose tinged with humour. As paterfamilias and a man of strong religious principles he remained concerned that his absence from home might lead to backsliding on the part of his offspring – witness the scribbled instruction on the face of a postcard “Eliz. H. Auty go to Chapel in Market St. Sunday”.