Les Baigneuses de Boulogne

An unseasonal trip to the sea in the company of this fine group of females, enjoying the hard-won freedom to immerse themselves in seawater. Unintimidated by the climate of prudery represented by the bathing machines encroaching from behind, they confidently make the most of their day in the sun, presenting their best faces to the camera. The bathing machines could be the advancing army of the guardians of public decency, outraged by this display of immodesty. Travelling westwards to le Touquet, we encounter a group of young, smartly dressed, adolescent males taking the air with a certain swagger at the water’s edge. Another group have taken control of a small boat, grounded on the sand, and stare wistfully in the direction of the breaking waves and the open sea with a hunger for adventure. In the postcard universe, the crashing of the waves is silenced and the sea breezes are stilled, but the colour and light, the surface textures, and the sheer sensation of time and place remain marvellously preserved.

Cigar Smoke

Postcards depicting back-breaking manual labour were very popular. Perhaps they reminded the holiday maker of the situation from which they had (temporarily) escaped. The above card from Cuba is exceptional in the degree to which the workforce appears oppressed and exhausted by the tasks they must accomplish. Shifting these massive and weighty bales around has induced a mood of weary lethargy. The second card (below) relates to an earlier stage in the process with an image of a Cuban Tobacco Barn in which the tobacco leaves would have been cured. The third card shows a room full of workers engaged in the art of hand-rolling cigars in a Florida factory. Cigar production was a long and labour-intensive activity and it is pleasing to find some recognition of this in these fascinating postcards.

Carlsberg

These attractive and uncredited illustrations come from a promotional book published by the Carlsberg Brewery in the early 1950’s. The book itself is a rather sober affair with a lot of text and monochrome photographs explaining the brewing process. The visual monotony is relieved by the presence of these intensely coloured, double page illustrations. Stylistically they are untypical of the period. Modified elements of sachplakat are combined with vigorous, scrubbed brushwork. The colour palette is one of deep and rich hues deployed with great flair, supported by some deceptively sharp and accurate drawing. They demonstrate the worldwide availability and natural goodness of Carlsberg with carefully considered images structured in an almost cinematic fashion. The luminosity of the paper and the colour selections combine to produce a sense of spaces flooded with light. It’s deplorable that the identity of the artist went unacknowledged. Sadly, this was so often the fate of the inventive, highly skilled and grossly undervalued commercial illustrator.

Helen Madeleine McKie (1889-1957)

This group of illustrations by Helen McKie come from a promotional book entitled “Ford at War” published in 1946 to celebrate the Ford contribution to the war effort. Ford’s Dagenham factory complex produced vast quantities of military vehicles plus marine and aircraft engines and all aspects of the operation are described in these illustrations. McKie worked through two world wars as an artist/illustrator concentrating on genre scenes rather than combat but this task must have involved many hours of observation in heavy industrial surroundings and seems to have brought a new edge to her work. Forges and machine shops are not familiar territory for female artists although, like Laura Knight, she had no problem making herself at home there. McKie’s paintings bear comparison with Knight’s factory scenes possessing the same robust characteristics despite a lighter quality of paint handling. The presence of such a large female contingent in the workforce is properly recorded in the Dagenham pictures; confident and poised female workers are well in evidence.


Biographical information on Helen McKie is thin on the ground. She is not recorded in the Dictionary of Twentieth Century British Book Illustrators. The best source is the Archive of Art and Design which holds a collection of her personal papers. Much of her work was carried out for magazines and has never been gathered into one place. Magazine illustration is extremely ephemeral and McKie is one of many unsung illustrators whose reputation has suffered as a result. Her drawings were always lively and well observed and she had a genuine flair for portraying crowds. The paintings of Waterloo Station packed with travellers that she produced for the Southern Railway were wonderful demonstrations of skill. Please follow this link to the Science & Society Picture Library to see them plus a generous selection of her other work.

Postcard of the Day No. 24, Ostende

Two gentlemen of leisure, unencumbered by luggage, stroll across the deck of a Dover bound ferry at Ostende. Bidding farewell to the uncivilized chaos of Continental Europe and looking forward to a welcome return to the country of courtesy, cricket and warm beer. Or perhaps, reluctantly leaving behind the superior food, music and architecture of Continental Europe and anticipating the obnoxious food and foul manners of the arrogant English. These are some of the last days of peace before Europe descends into the barbarism of mechanised warfare. For those with the funds to afford it, there was a freedom to travel the globe with an ease that could never be achieved again.

Transporter Bridges Revisited

This fabulous postcard explains the romance of this antiquated but astonishing bridge technology. This is a view of the car, or gondola, that glides through the air as it crosses the River Usk at Newport. It is very similar to the example constructed in Marseille to a design by the same engineer, Fernand Arnodin (see below). There’s an affinity with the world of the seaside pier but the ornate period architecture of the shelters and control tower and the overhead canopy suggest a distinctly theatrical experience. It’s not difficult to imagine this structure simply carrying on when it reaches the distant shore and gaining altitude as it sails across the Bristol Channel and out into the open Atlantic. Next stop, Coney Island.


The gondola has an air of ramshackle fragility when compared with the mass and weight of the supporting structure. The platform would make the perfect location for a dinner party; the gentle motion of the gondola would, no doubt, assist the digestive process. There’s space to accommodate an army of chefs and even a small orchestra to grace the occasion. It would also make an unusual and rather pleasing location from which to have one’s ashes scattered. The Newport bridge has been out of action for over a year but there is encouraging news in this report in the South Wales Argus of January 2, 2009. Previous postings on this topic are here and here.

Howdy Podner!

A raffish cowboy welcome to Sin City. An unsophisticated image with a lewd wink, an upturned thumb and a mis-shapen cigarette wedged between the lips. Inside the card is a lavish display of buildings devoted to amusement and pleasure. The object of the exercise is to lose enormous sums of money to enable the casino operators to make a return on their investment in contemporary architecture and some of the largest neon signs in existence.


Architectural styles pioneered in California such as Coffee Shop Modern followed the highway across the desert from Los Angeles to Las Vegas as California based entrepreneurs took full advantage of relaxed Nevada gambling laws. These images include examples from some of the masters of these mid-century styles such as Wayne McAllister, architect of El Rancho Vegas, the Desert Inn and the Sands Hotel, the latter, a spectacular exercise in Late Moderne. The Hotel Flamingo was designed in California Modern style by George Vernon Russell; the client was Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, noted LA mobster of fond memory. The Flamingo opened in December 1946 and closed in February 1947 having lost a colossal sum of money in a very short time. There was more bad news for Siegel four months later when a bullet in the back of the head that exited through his eye socket, brought his life to an end at the tender age of 41.