Postcards of the Day (and Night) No. 6 and 7

An opportunity to admire the art of the retoucher as he or she deftly transforms a postcard view of Cincinnati streets from day to night. Most of the vehicles and pedestrians are in the same positions but a select few have been erased in a half- hearted effort to conceal what’s been going on. In a curious way, neither image is convincing. The thought occurs that the night scene might be the original over which the retouch artist has spread a tepid wash of daylight.

The backs of the cards show they were posted to the same address in the East End of London in July and August 1920 and at first glance they might appear to be carrying a coded message. The likely explanation is, however, a lot less interesting. The words ‘Post Card’ have been crossed through and the words ‘Printed Matter’ and the name and address of the sender are stamped on the back. My best guess is that this was to take advantage of a concessionary postal rate of 1 cent (instead of 2 cents) that also required the sender to fix the stamps to the view side as per the instructions top right. No doubt a postal historian could explain this apparent service to postcard collectors.

Independence Day

Today we pay tribute to American graphics with a small visual demonstration to show how flying the flag can be good for business. These examples are from the 1940’s, a time when an appeal to patriotism could never go amiss. Long before Jasper Johns applied his perfectly calibrated brushstrokes to the flag, Madison Avenue had adapted the format and colour scheme to the needs of advertising. What may be lacking in imagination is made up for with clarity of purpose and brutally simple but effective presentation.

Concertina Cards

This is a small selection of attractive concertina (sometimes called ‘fold-out’) cards from the USA. They tend to be shunned by postcard dealers for being less than the real thing whilst ephemera dealers show little interest, regarding them as nothing more than postcards. The examples shown here are mostly from the 1930’s and 1940’s and their covers tend to have a linen finish of the type associated with Curt Teich cards. The typography is completely unrestrained – an extravaganza of 3D letterforms, stretched and squeezed for maximum visual impact. The images within seem to have begun life as photographs but are so extensively retouched as to have lost almost all connection with reality. Colours are lurid and super saturated.

Road Safety Italian Style

More 1950’s collectors’ cards from Lavazza designed to promote safe use of the highways. An exercise in civic responsibility, this set dramatises the consequences of neglecting the proper observation of traffic signs and signals. A sequence of traffic calamities multiplies in front of our astonished eyes. Hapless pedestrians desperately sprint for safety only to find themselves running towards another disaster. A sustained air of panic and hysteria prevails. Bewildering changes in scale and incongruities of perspective serve to heighten the sense of unreality. It is to be hoped that this object lesson in shock tactics had the desired result. The right hand side of card number 3 provides a utopian glimpse of the calm and orderly universe waiting to be born.

Falmouth Ship Repair

This time last week I was in Falmouth which gives me an excuse to display a scan of a painting I finished a few years ago, ‘Falmouth Ship Repair’. This image was much influenced by the work of Ralston Crawford and Charles Sheeler whose paintings I greatly admire. Precisionism as a genre is a minority taste but it works for me. The subject is based on the panoramic views of the dry docks which I have drawn and photographed on many occasions for about 15 years now.



Falmouth is a rather splendid town in an unconventional way. It combines long maritime and industrial traditions with a genteel seaside resort and a large university with a definite bias towards the visual arts. The population is young, dynamic and changing. The ongoing presence of visiting ships of all sizes and types means that most of the world’s languages can be heard somewhere in the streets of the town in any given year. The Cornish sun can be especially brilliant and the weather can change in an instant from fair to foul.


The physical geography is fascinating. The town has expanded up the steep slopes of the Fal estuary and spectacular views across the port, harbour and beaches can be obtained from many locations. In many UK coastal towns and cities, the commercial docks are well concealed and designed to be unobservable. But in Falmouth virtually the entire port and ship repair yard can be seen from the elevated position of the parking bay on Castle Drive. It is a much photographed town but nobody should let that stop them from adding to the great unknown sum of Falmouth images.

The Art of the Scrapbook

Leisured Victorians were inveterate compilers of scrapbooks and collectors will pay good money to acquire the best examples. Eye-catching images were easily found in the popular press and publishers were on hand to produce richly coloured cut-out figures specifically for scrapbooks. The practice survived the first half of the 20th. century but declined rapidly in the second. Examples can still be found in second hand bookshops and car boot sales but they are not so common as they were.


I have been filling up scrapbooks on an irregular basis since 1980. The selection criteria continually changes but the overall bias is towards advertising and editorial illustration. Some books have been devoted to single themes or subjects; others are collections of collages. At present, 15 have been completed; another 12 are works in progress. These pages celebrate British advertising art of the early 20th. century when colour in advertising was still a luxury. It was a period notable for inventive use of greyscale tones and decoration and for the directness of the appeal to the consumer.

The world of Caffè Lavazza

The contemporary world of Lavazza promotion is an alien environment of slick, glossy, high-style publicity. The Lavazza calendar is a playground for art directors and fashion photographers where their passion for adolescent surrealism and soft porn can be indulged to the full. Anything goes so long as sex, fashion and coffee are linked together. Long suffering models protect their modesty with teaspoons, coffee cups and filter papers while photographers prowl in search of the perfect image. Despite all the effort and attention to detail the final results are distinctly cheesy. See for yourself by clicking here.


Lavazza in the 1950’s presented a much more comforting image to potential customers. Collectors’ cards were included in every pack to engage the interest of the young and this set was issued in 1954 to commemorate 60 years of Lavazza coffee. It is always instructive to see how companies celebrate their existence and this is a particularly interesting example. In these times historical and traditional links were much valued so the first card features the founding father and the very first premises. The message is, from these humble origins our great empire grew.



Cards number 2 and 3 illustrate production and packing. Automation, technology and hygiene are the order of the day. All surfaces are polished and buffed to a perfect sheen under cool fluorescent lighting. There is a pride in showing what is behind the scenes that seems anachronistic today. A present day audience would be unimpressed by images of the manufacturing process.



Card number 4 displays the product range in both domestic and catering packs. The mid-century graphics are distinctive and bold. The graphic style seems nicely poised between pre-war decorative complexity and the pared down geometry of the 1960’s. The pack shots are lovingly rendered with a hyper-realist eye. The next card is a real treat. Barring a few landmarks, all traces of the world unconnected with Lavazza have been removed to enable free passage for the fleet of vans and trucks distributing the product throughout the land. This is a capitalist utopia – no obstacles to progress and no competition.


The final card portrays sixty years of coffee preparation and serving. Smoothly modelled forms show progress from the simple saucepan of 1894 to the gleaming reflective machine of 1954 complete with juke-box styling. These images all have great charm which springs in part from the rendering technique but also from the absence of a hard-sell. There are no comparisons with rival brands and no images of happy and contented consumers, nothing about value for money and no life style associations. It would be fascinating to learn the fate of the original artwork for these cards. Any information much appreciated. Please click on the images to see enlargements.