Artists (mainly but not exclusively of posters)
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Angrave, Bruce
Born in Leicester in 1914; died 1983. Studied at Chiswick Art School, Ealing School of Art and Central College of Art, Book illoustrator and poster artist. For poster of Crlomer see Emblin Backtrack, 2014, 28, 356. See also Cole and Durack...

Barney, Gerald [Gerry]
Designed British Rail logo which graces every station and most railway tickets. It was created in 1964 by a 21 year old typeface designer

Beck, Henry Charles
Born in Leyton on 4 June 1902; died in Southampton (when normally resident in Fordingbridge) on 18 September 1974. Educated at Grove House School in Highgate. Sent to Italy to train a monumental sculptor. Married Nora Millington, a lady of independent means. Produced classic London Transport Underground map. ODNB obituary by Elizabeth Baigent. Memorial blue plaque at place of birthM see Humm J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 2015, 38, 252.

Bourne, John Cooke
Born in London on 1 September 1814. Apprenticed to John Pye, a London-based landscape engraver. Noted for portraying the London & Birmingham Railway under construction published as Drawings of the London & Birmingham Railway (Ottley 6465) and a similar collection of coloured lithographs: History and description of the Great Western Railway  (Ottley 5930). Died in February 1896, but his son did not die until 1962. From Jack Simmons entry in Oxford Companion: see also John van Laun John Cooke Bourne... Journal Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 2014 (219) 2 (first part of series). See also Beverley Cole's concise article in Backtrack, 2016, 30, 500-1 in which she shows the significance of his accurate depiction of the construction of the London & Birmingham Railway and the enormous scale of the civil engineering works..

Bury, Thomas Talbot
See C.F. Dendy Marshall Transactions Newcomen Society, 2, 12.

Campbell, Leonard Taylor (1874-1969)
Produced posters for LMS; notably interior of first class restaurant car with Isle of Arran in background and customers exuding wealth and damaging their health by smoking. Poster reproduced in Beverley Cole. Backtrack, 2015, 29, 582.

Carr, Leslie
Commercial artist: painter; illustrator; posters. Very tidy work. Work appeared in the Motor Magazine and in posterr for the LNER, Southern Railway, LCC Tramways and British Railways

Clay, Jonathan
Locomotive portraits. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Transport, 2015.
150 paintings without scenic backgrounds (except for ground and in case of electrics conductor wire) predominantly of locomotives, but also a few trains: Virgin Pendolino, Brighton Belle and a Blue Pullman, for instance. There is neither a contents listing nor an index, but there is a lengthy introduction on how he came to love locomotives and a brief section on how he paints them. The pictures are captioned and do indicate on whether the subjects were actually seen or whether they are based on photographs, etc. There is an imposing portrait of the Stanier turbine locomotive, but little real detail on how it was constructed or sounded. The lettering on some of the portraits is imperfect: see Terrier Stepney on page 108 and Blickling Hall on page 63. The pictures are more effective if viewed when being flicked through looking for them and less so when studied in close up. The real problem is boiler highlights: these are too prominent. This fault is absent from Digby's more precise approach, but was evident in Hugh Le Fleming's masterpiece. The BR 2-6-4T is the painter's favourite

Cuneo, Terence

Digby, Nigel J.L.
The liveries of the Pre-grouping railways. Volume one. Wales and the West of England. Lydney: Lightmoor Pres, 2017. 96pp.
This is a precise work of art which has one serious blemish: most of the images extend over two pages: thus one cannot examine them flat. The problem of boiler highlights is tackled with sensitivity: a landscape format might have been better. An electronic image version might also be worthy of consideration. The images are superb and extend from the Mersey Railway down to Cornwall  and include the different reds used by the Barry Railway and the Brecon & Merthyr Railway as well as Swindon green gloriously celebrated by No. 4007 Rising Star on pages 44 and 45. In the majority of the railways decribed the paintings extend beyond locomotives to passenger and freight rolling stock and include details of the lining applied to locomotives, further guidance on colours including to BS 3252, BS 381 and Pantone numbers. There are also half-tone illustrations, some Moore colour images and carefully crafted text. It is hoped to add a complete listing.

Earl, George (1824-1908).
Coming South, Perth Station. 1895.
Reproduced in Christine Heap's. 'Coming South, Perth Sation' pp. 126-7 in Neil Cossons Making of the modern world. pp. 170-1. There is a companion painting: Going North, King's Cross Station

Ellis: London Midland & Scottish pp. 45-7
The LMS had been striving for some time to create an image of itself, which should command public respect; to make in fact a new Premier Line which was not the London & North Western warmed-up, a new Best Way which was not the Midland hashed. The sort of resistance it had to meet has just been described; in the 'twenties only the Great Western had any sort of social status among British railway companies, and that was because it preserved a much older image with no visible change, as if it Were a Saxon Godwin, or a Norman Gresley among a lot of jumped-up nobodies whose peerages had been created by the House of Hanover.
One of the LMS company's earlier and most successful efforts, an admirable thing indeed, had been the commissioning of eminent artists to paint posters illustrating both its territory and its actrvrnes. In the past, railway pictorial posters had been generally eye-catching, and sometimes picturesque in a vernacular way, though many were of singular vulgarity. With some affection — it was just the sort of thing to appeal to the eye of a child — one recalls the London & North Western Railway's Put Your Works Here! It showed a huge single-block factory about to descend like an Unidentified Flying Object upon an oblong meadow beside the line, to which the company had already laid on a siding with the inevitable Webb coal engine awaiting custom. As to passenger business, what nobody then called sex-appeal was widely used and was exemplified by an incredibly overdressed, overhatted, overcorseted young female person against a panoramic background, such as Coniston Water. Goodness only knew how she had got up the the mountain with all those things on!
Much better was the Caledonian's famous Golfing Girl at Gleneagles, whom the LMS took up with pleasure. She had been variously driving-off, or using her No. 7 in a bunker, since well before the '14 war, and her neat tweeds changed with the years and the vagaries of fashion. Plenty of children were depicted at the seaside; some of them were horrible little fat-cheeked brats, but others were really charming. But for years, the London & North Western had commissioned work from a very eminent painter, Norman Wilkinson, who specialised in marine subjects. In his struggling youth, when professional models came dear, his nice sister obliged him, and a poster of the ship-to-train transfer at Holyhead showed Miss Wilkinson sailing up the platform like a clipper before the South East Trades. In 1923, Norman Wilkinson persuaded the new company to produce pictorial posters on a new and at the same time patrician scale. He wrote at the time: "There is an idea very generally entertained that a poster is a particular form of art, and must be handled on certain conventional lines. This to me is a fallacy. A poster — I am speaking now of pictorial posters — is something that will attract and arrest the attention of the public. It therefore follows that if the bulk of the posters now displayed are on certain lines, one is likely to achieve greater success with something that is not essentially on those lines." Just before Christmas, 1923, the London Midland & Scottish company announced the commissioning of Royal Academicians for the production of its new posters. There was to be no lettering on the pictures (a horrid custom of the past!) and very little on the borders. Had Stephen Potter reached maturity in those days, he might have remarked that the LMS had achieved a masterly piece of one-up mans hip on the lofty old Great Western and some others. (The London & North Eastern, however, was quick off the mark. Brangwyn produced for it a glorious Rqyal Border Bridge.) To the LMS the several distinguished painters variously responded, Sir D.Y. Cameron (an alarming man in some ways) painted simply The Scottish Highlands, rather in the manner of his famous Shadows of Glencoe; a very fine picture of mountains in those rich after-storm colours which lovers of Western Scotland have known for so long with such delight. Then Sir William Orpen, eminent painter of eminent personages' portraits, contributed a picture of enginemen in the cab, on a night express, but, one feels with less success. One would not dare to criticise Orpen's figures of the driver and fireman, and his drawin:g of the engine cab (indubitably London & North Western) was technically correct, but one suspected that he was not really at home with a locomotive. The glare of the open firedoor suggested that someone had dropped a fuzee into a box of fireworks, and the slobby stuff in front of the panel-plate suggested anything but the flying vapours of a locomotive at full speed in the night. Norman Wilkinson, of course, painted an Irish Sea packet under a sky of vast mounting cumulus. Stanhope Forbes painted Platelayers, a very agreeable picture of men lifting a rail into chairs and marred only by the pose of the lookout man who had turned to look round instead of having both eyes on the Up Fast and his warning horn at the ready.
There were various others; some good and one or two ineffably bad. Specially finished and mounted colour lithographs went to decorate the Great Hall at Euston, and by many who paused to look at them were thought to be the originals.
In 1926 came a rather different sort of poster, devoted in a matey sort of way to the working of the railways itself. Arthur Watts drew The Driver, The Signalman , The Porter and The Guard , and E.V. Knox (Evoe of Punch) furnished verses underneath.
The company's Advertising and Publicity Department owed much to the London & North Western company, which had been one of the very first to realise the popular appeal not only of the places and scenes the railway served but of the railway itself. One believes that Sir Frank Ree had had something to do with this. G. H. Loftus AlIen became LMS Advertising and Publicity Officer in 1927, having joined the London & North Western service in 1913. In 1915 he had gone to France as an RTO, subsequently becoming Deputy Assistant Director of Railway Transport. Back in company's service, he had held office as Runner in various districts, being Superintendent of the Line's Runner, Birmingham, during the year 1922-23. He had six months in the United States under an LMS scheme. In the 1930S, one of his young men was Derek Barrie, journalist- turned-railwayman, who years after was to command the North Eastern and Eastern Regions of British Railways.

Emett, Rowland
Born on 22 October 1904; died 13 November 1990. Punch cartoonist who created Far Twittering and Oyster Creek Railway with locomotive Nellie implemented in Battersea Park during Festival of Britain during 1951. See Rly Wld, 1991, 52, 218; and beautifully writtten ODNB biography by John Jensen; and Ottley entries 4472 et seq.

Forbes, Stanhope Alexander
Born Dublin on 18 November 1857, the younger son of William Forbes, manager of the Midland Great Western Railway in Ireland, and his French wife, Juliette de Guise. His uncle James Staats Forbes, an important art collector, particularly of the French Barbizon and Dutch Hague schools, his cousin William Alexander Forbes, and his elder brother, Sir William Forbes, all followed careers as railway managers, but Stanhope Forbes showed a talent for drawing which was encouraged by his art master at Dulwich College, John Sparkes. In 1884 he visited Cornwall and was attracted by the little village of Newlyn. Forbes died at his home, Higher Faughan, Newlyn, on 2 March 1947. ODNB entry by Kenneth McConkey. Through the marshes exhibited Royal Acedemy see Locomotive Mag., 1925, 33, 237. Railway posters see Cole and Durack

Gawthorn, Henry George
Born in Northampton in 1879; died 1941. Studied at the Heatherley School and Regent Street Polytechnic. Worked in an architect's office before becoming a poster artist. Much work for the LNER, For poster of Saltburn by the Sea see Emblin Backtrack, 2014, 28, 356. Place of birth and correct spelling see Cole and Durack. Poster of Alexandra Dock, Hull (LNER) see Backtrack, 2015, 29, 674.

Grineau, Bryan de
Born on 11 May 1883 as Charles William Grineau; died May 1957 (Times obituary 27 May). Specialised in motoring especially motor sport. Railway posters see Cole and Durack poster of LMS streamlined Pacific

Kinneir, Ricard [Jock]
Born in Hampshire on 11 February 1917; died 23 August 1994. Educated and taught at Chelsea College of Arts. Typographer noted for road signage, but also designed an alphabet for British Rail

Le Fleming, Hugh Murton

Lingstrom, Freda Violet
Born in Chelsea on 23 July 1893; died at Chartwell on 15 April 1989. Daughter of copper engraver of Swedish ancestry. Educated at Central School of Arts & Crafts. Latterly worked for BBC childrens programmes and included creation of Andy Pandy. For poster of Skye see Emblin Backtrack, 2014, 28, 356. Otherwise Wikipedia 2016-04-25. See also cover for Clyde, Trossachs, Western Highlands reproduced in Backtrack, 2016, 30, 272.

Mason, Frank Henry Algernon
Born in Seaton Carew on 1 October 1875. Educated at HMS Conway Naval School in Birkenhead. Trained as a marine engineer at Parsons. Settled in Scarborough in 1894 and studied at Scarborough School of Art. During WW1 was an official shipping war artist. Very bold poster artist. Died 24 February 1965. Wikipedia 2014-06. and Cole and Durack.

Michael, Arthur C.
Produced posters for LNER (sometimes in association with other companies); notably golfing poster of St. Andrews. Poster reproduced in Beverley Cole. Backtrack, 2015, 29, 582 in black & white, but widely available in colour on Internet..

Newbould, Frank
Born in Bradford on 24 September 1887; died 1951. Educated at Bradford College of Art and Camberwell School of Art, he worked mostly in London from the interwar period specialising in travel posters. For poster of Belgium via Harwich see Emblin Backtrack, 2014, 28, 356. Otherwise Wikipedia 2014-05-30.

Paolozzi, Eduardo Luigi
Born on 7 March 1924 in Leith of Italian parents, died in London on 22 April 2005. Interned during WW2 in Saughton Gaol (his father and grandfather lost their lives when being transported to Canada as vessel was sunk by German submarine). The recurring subject of Paolozzi's art was the relationship between man and machine, and the role of artificial intelligence in the post-industrial age. From his teenage experience in Scotland, of cigarette cards and the cinema, Paolozzi believed that popular culture (the dynamism of which is present in his best work) was innately superior to much fine art, a belief he still upheld in the salons of Hampstead when he was a Royal Academician. ODNB biography by Robin Spencer. Reason for inclusion: Tottenham Couurt Road station (personal experience) and see Paul Moss

Pisarro, Camille
French Impressionist who stayed in London and painted trains in West London: see letter from Clive Croome in Rly Arch. No. 46

Purvis, Thomas Charles
Born in Bristol on 12 June 1888, the son of the sailor and marine artist, T.G. Purvis (1861-1933). After leaving school he attended Camberwell College of Art in London for 3½ years, during this time he studied under both Sickert and Degas. After leaving art college Purvis began working for the advertising agency Mather and Crowther however little of his work from this time has survived/has been identified. Purvis left Mather and Crowther after 6 years and began working freelance for Avenue Press, whose facilities he used in his spare time in order to master the art of lithographic printing, which defined much of his poster work. Purvis was widely known as one of the most important English poster artists of his day, recognisable for his simplified, symbolic, two-dimensional and colourful style of printing. He is probably best known for his work with Austin Reed and the LNER, for whom he produced over 100 posters from 1923-1945. During his time collaborating with the LNER and Austin Reed Purvis created posters and magazine/newspaper advertisements for other company’s including: Aquascutum, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Bovril, The British Industries Fair (B.I.F.), Colgate, The Daily Herald and Shell. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s he contributed to various publications through freelance work with Odhams Press, illustrating stories and front covers for titles including: 20 Story Magazine, The London Magazine, Modern Man, PAN, Passing Show Magazine, and Punch. The style Purvis employed for this work is often significantly more naturalistic than that seen in his poster work. During the Second World War Purvis was also an official poster artist for the Ministry of Supply. During his career Purvis lobbied for the professionalisation of commercial art. He publicised his views concerning what he perceived as a lack of practical training for commercial artists through articles and lectures. In 1930 Purvis joined the Society of Industrial Artists and in 1936 he became one of the first designers to be made a Royal Designer for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts. After the Second World War Purvis withdrew from commercial art however he continued to work with Blackpool Pleasure Beach until his death on 27 August 1959, alongside undertaking commissioned portrait work. In his later years (c.1950s) Purvis converted to Catholicism and focussed on religious paintings [NRM]. The Coronation (showing the train crossing the Royal Border Bridge with "headlamps shining" is basis for cover of Cole and Durack.

Potts, Richard [Dick]
Member Guild Railway Artists. Former enngine driver. Retired 1993. Joined as cleaner at Tyseley in 1950. See Rly Wld., 1989, 50, 233. Frequent letter writer to Great Westernn Railway J. on matters relating to Tyseley (from the correct tram route to the Lickey Hills to the performence of the 94XX class)

Secretan, Murray
Born 1888; died 1945. Worked for LMS Advertising Department and later for the Trade Advertising Section. Some railway posters. See Cole and Durack....

Steel, Kenneth
Born in Sheffield on 9 July 1906; died 1970. Educated at Sheffield College of Art. Producer of posters and railway carriage panels. For poster of Ullswater see Emblin Backtrack, 2014, 28, 356. .

Stingemore, F.H.
Mainly associated with cartography of London Underground network prior to Beck.

Tenniel, John
Born on 28 February 1820 in London; died 25 February 1914 iin London. Achieved great fame as illuiustrator of Lewis Carroll "Alice" books, but also known for his work in Punch. Penetrating assessment of his caricacture of railway board members and their attitude towards passener safety by Simmons in Express train. The vital statistics reflect the ODNB entry by L. Perry Curtis jun which makes no mention of Jack Simmons' observations nor Tenniel's dislike of the railway industry, but does record some of his unpleasant attitudes towards Jews, the Irish and Africans

Twining, Ernest W.

Ward, Laurie
Draughtsman who recorded his observations in Journal of the Stephenson Locomotive Society. See Fell and Hennessey Backtrack, 2009, 23, 646. Was he the Ward who produced Modern locomotives published by Rylee of Birmingham? Also plates in Trains Annual 1953

Way, Robert Barnard
Born in 1890. Ten titles listed in Ottley (mainly books for children). Website shows that cigarette cards and postcards produced by him. The World's railways and how they work

Welch, Victor
Andrew Dow's Memories of a railway childhood page 39 "The other presence of railways at the school was the occasional visit of my father, with films and a projectionist, to talk about railways. This was a typical public relations function, not only to foster general interest in railways, but also to encourage thoughts of joining the railway as a career. The projectionist on these occasions was almost certainly Vie Welch, who my father discovered buried in the depths of Euston House when he joined the London Midland Region in 1949. One year, my birthday party at home was a railway film show for friends, and Vie Welch probably did the honours then. But my father had discovered that he was a keen artist, and after getting him to produce some diagrammatic maps for use throughout the London Midland, he asked him to produce paintings for use in pictorial posters. The first was Trains of Our Times, which showed steam, diesel and electric trains at Bushey, and the second was Britain's First All-Electric Main Line, showing electrically-hauled trains on the Woodhead route. These launched him on a career as a commercial illustrator, and he left the railway, but thereafter he was always pleased to execute commissions for his old chief, who had set him on this path.
Nock's Scottish railways includes some of his best work.

Wilkinson, Norman
Born in Cambridge on 24 November 1878; died 31 May 1971. Educated at Berkhamsted School in Hertfordshire and at St. Paul's Cathedral Choir School in London. His early artistic training occurred in the vicinity of Portsmouth and Cornwall, and at Southsea School of Art, where he was later a teacher as well. He also studied with seascape painter Louis Grier, marine artist who created dazzle camouflage during WW1. For poster of Birthplace of Robert Burns (a poor poster) see Emblin Backtrack, 2014, 28, 356. Otherwise Wikipedia 2014-05-30. See also Cole and Durack. Covers for two LMS brochures published in 1928 reproduced in Backtrack, 2016, 30, 272. : one shows Turnberry golf course with Ailsa Craig and the other a very striking Arbroath Abbey.

Wolstenholme, Arthur Nigel
Articles by Geoff Courtney in Heritage Railway (March-April 2011 and August 2011) reveal more about A N Wolstenholme the artist whose pictures adorned many Ian Allan publications and BR posters from the 1940s onwards. Arthur Nigel Wolstenholme was born in January 1920 and died in June 2002 at the age of 82 in Watford where it is believed he had lived for at least 40 years and possibly for his entire life. He worked as a freelance technical and commercial artist and covered subjects beyond transport. Also Art Editor of Loco Profile series edited by Brian Reed. Images on FLIKR. A question of line. Trains Annual, 1948, 18-22: proposals for softening the outline of the Thompson and de-streamlined LMS Pacifics. Probably responsible for images on dust jacket for Master builders of steam (KPJ's favourite non-photographic images of locomotives).

Wood, Leslie Ashwell
Born in Stockport on 26 February 1920; died 1994 when living in Poynton, Cheshire. He studied at the Manchester College of Art and Design and gained a travelling scholarship. Prevented from travelling abroad because of WW2, he instead went to London. In 1943, Wood showed some of his work to Faber and Faber, and was soon commissioned to take over illustration of Diana Ross' Little Red Engine books, and went on to illustrate many other children's books including the covers of the first fourteen Hugh Walters Chris Godrey of UNEXA series. Famed for Eagle comic cut-away drawings; also much in evidence in The World's railways and how they work.

2018-07-18