1920s RUSSIAN FILM POSTERS

For anyone interested in silent films, graphic design and posters this is the exhibition for you!
The KINO/FILM: SOVIET POSTERS OF THE SILENT SCREEN is a fantastic collection of rare Russian posters. 

The exhibition is on at GRAD (Gallery for Russian Arts and Design), which is tucked away on a side street between Oxford Circus and the iconic Art Deco gem of BBC Broadcasting House in central London.

GRAD's stylish sign outside their gallery.

Display of the posters in the window.

Inside you will find a feast of beautifully designed posters all contained in one big room. They are bursting with Soviet era aesthetics and each have a surprising energy, confidence and unique sense of colour.

The calm and beautifully set out exhibition room.

Russian design has always had an individual style and the gorgeous typography only adds to the brilliance and skill involved in making these posters.

Simply stunning poster of the 1926 film, The Three Million Case.

Just look at the fantastic use of unusual colours and typography, WOW!

Wonderfully, alongside the posters, some of the silent films of the era are beamed onto the walls. These startling and ingenious films gave you the perfect context for the posters. Possibly the most famous Russian film, Battleship Potemkin, was of course shown, but we were transfixed by the beguiling little film called Chess Fever.

This is the 1928 film Chess Fever beamed onto the wall between the posters.

As an added extra, music of the era was quietly and subtlety played in the background allowing you to fully absorb yourself into the whole experience.

You can see the posters on their website, but I fully recommend you see them close-up. The bods at GRAD very generously allow you to take pictures as well. 

Striking use of daring colour on Decembrists from 1928.

Classic Soviet era typography on the brilliantly named Heroes of the Blast Furnace (1928).

Simply brilliant set of posters from the films The Uprising (1928), Oil (1927) and Cement (1928).

Another still from Chess Fever, what a lovely film it was!

Here are all the details you need:
Web: 
http://www.grad-london.com/whatson/kino-film-soviet-posters-of-the-silent-screen/

Address: 
3-4a Little Portland Street,
London,
W1W 7JB

And entrance is FREE!!


For anyone interested in cinematic history, you may like to know I've created a collage of 1940s Spanish film posters from my own collection.
Find one at my stall at the SOUTHEND VINTAGE FAIR on the 2nd March, see you there!

My own design, available in a frame, fridge magnet or card!

RETRO SOUTHEND PROGRAMMES

Here is the first of some new RETRO FOOTBALL designs I've finished recently....

A must for all fans of SOUTHEND UNITED...
A real retro collage of groovy programme covers!

Most of this fantastic collection dates from the 1970s, and you can really trace the history of their covers going into the early 80s.
Those bods in charge of cover designs had a real taste for the hand-drawn cover! With some strange paintings and drawings sneaking in! Also, some brilliant 70s typography!!

Some restraint was called for in the 1974/75 season though as United's iconic boot logo appeared on a stark deep blue background.
In the 1976/77 they opted for another simple and stylish design, with their boot logo and a neat red, white and blue stripe down the left hand side, mirroring the club's shirt sleeves at the time.
Although they lapsed into the hand-drawn again over the next two seasons by 1979/80, it looks like they let a real designer have a go and came up with another stylish and striking cover design. Also featuring colour pictures for the first time. It all came at a cost though as within those 2 years the price had trebled to a whopping 30p!!!

Some of you may remember trooping down to Roots Hall on a Friday evening to buy one of these programmes before entering the floodlit ground, taking your place in the North Bank or the paddock of the East Stand. Here is a closer look at some of the programmes featured.

This is the oldest programme here from 1962, showing a great aerial view of Roots Hall.

A strange mix of striking typography and watercolour!

Super 70s logo, with hastily added typed info of opponents and date!

The brilliant United boot logo features on a stark blue background.

Striking and simple, a well balanced design.

                 

Despite the nice typography and classic retro box, who on earth allowed that drawing to be done!

Innovative way of getting multiple colour pictures in for the first time.

If any Blues fans fancy one of these collages, catch me at the SOUTHEND VINTAGE FAIR on 2nd March at the Chase Sports Centre.

NEW DESIGNS!

Have had a manic weekend working on new designs and ideas!!

Completed two new RETRO FOOTBALL collages, scanned and worked on some gorgeous vintage magazines, created a new SEASIDE SPECIALS design and drew and sketched out many new ideas....

Also did a collage of vintage railway luggage labels...

I got this fantastic collection from the antique fair at Alexandra Palace last year, and have been meaning to do something with them ever since!
I just love them, they evoke a real feel for the old steam trains of old. I'm pretty sure the numbers in the left hand corner give you the month and year of the labels. So for example, the Waterloo to Sunbury label would be October 1927.

Let me know if you'd like one as a frame or even a fridge magnet and see me at my next fair on 2nd March at the SOUTHEND VINTAGE FAIR.

I'll let you know soon which new and exciting footie collages I've just finished as they are particularly relevant to my next two fairs!!

QUEENS PARK RANGERS

Have recently been working on a special commission to do a QUEENS PARK RANGERS collage...

Is always nice to get a surprise commission and be able to add to my collection of RETRO FOOTBALL collages.
For this one, I created a retro style border around the collage, which I quite like, so I might now add this feature to my other footie specials!

This collage mostly features the classic 1970s QPR era, when the Super Hoops come close to clinching the League Championship.
The ultimate hero from those days was STAN BOWLES, who is the big feature in the foreground.

Other legends of the Loftus Road faithful are also here, including RODNEY MARSH, GERRY FRANCIS, ROGER MORGAN, DON GIVENS, IAN GILLARD and DAVE THOMAS.

Hopefully the whole thing will give a nostalgic glow to any QPR fan who fondly remembers that amazing era!



I also have another RETRO FOOTBALL collage to tell you about, and I'm currently scanning in loads of material for another, so keep tuned for more news!

EXCITING NEW DATES!

Hi everyone, have booked up my first two fairs for 2014!

I'm very excited about these fairs as they are in new locations and places.
First up is the SOUTHEND VINTAGE FAIR on 2nd March at the Chase Sports Centre.
A new venue and a great chance for everyone in Southend to catch up on their vintage shopping!

Next one is a week later on 9th March in Bexleyheath in Kent for the CROOK LOG ANTIQUE AND COLLECTABLES FAIR. Another exciting venture and in a great new location for me, right on the edges of London.

So put these dates in your vintage diary right now and I'll see you there!!

Both these fairs are organised by the splendid Haddon Events, check out their website for more info:
http://haddonevents.weebly.com

PILLBOX

I've long been fascinated in pillboxes. You can find these concrete structures almost anywhere. Dotted along the coast, on a railway embankment or rather incongruously plonked in the middle of a field.

There they stand, as defiantly as they did when they were built in 1940. Silent and stubborn reminders of the time Britain was under genuine threat.

This perfect example is at Paglesham in Essex, patiently guarding the River Roach.

Pillboxes are now an integral feature of our landscape. Sometimes they will be covered in graffiti and sealed up, but usually you can squeeze inside them, trying to avoid the scary array of litter you find in there, and gaze out through the loopholes. It is impossible not to think of the people who manned these often isolated posts and not to feel how very exposed and vulnerable they are despite their solidity.

Inland these would have been vital in helping halt any invasion, and a quick look on Wiki tells you there were an incredible 28,000 of them built. Such was the fear of invasion.

My first memory of seeing and clambering inside a pillbox was at St Laurence’s Bay in Essex as a child. Although I knew what it was, I doubt whether I understood the real importance of it.
Over the years I’ve spotted so many, sometimes in different shapes, but usually that familiar hexagonal pillbox shape, hence the name!

Often they are disguised to blend in with their surroundings, like the rock shaped ones on the coast of Portland in Dorset and further along at Chesil Beach, I came across one all on its own, still staring out to sea, covered in little stones to look like the beach.

Clever camouflaging at Portland.

Lone pillbox at Chesil Beach, note the stones covering it.

I remember the dramatic ones, perched high up on the cliffs, near Folkstone, the many dotted along the fields next to the old road to Chelmsford and the still complete pillbox dumped in the sea by coastal erosion at the foot of Naze Tower in Walton-on-the-Naze. There is a also a perfect example, guarding the River Colne near Colchester, that is proudly maintained by the Mill Race Garden Centre. 

Stranded on the beach at Walton, you can really see how far the coast has eroded in the last 70 years.

Re-enactors at the carefully preserved pillbox at Mill Race, giving a real sense of how they were used.

But perhaps the most curious I’ve seen is the one hidden behind a wall on Southend seafront. Once forming a gateway to the gasworks, the gorgeous Victorian brickwork hides a deadly secret! All you notice is a strange gap in the wall, perhaps just a missing brick lost over the years. But take a peep behind the wall and there you will see a hidden pillbox, and you realise that gap would have once housed a machine gun.

The innocent looking Victorian wall on Southend seafront. But check out that gap!

Looking behind the wall reveals the secret! The ingeniously hidden pillbox!

Whenever I see pillbox, I stop and explore and pause for a moment to contemplate. So next time you go wandering the fields and coast paths keep an eye out for these poignant concrete symbols of our past.

A windswept tree has managed to grow around this pillbox near Abbotsbury in Dorset. Gives you a feel of the often exposed and rather drafty locations they were placed.

This poor pillbox at Mersea Island in Essex is starting to sink, proving they really do become part of the landscape.

A peep through the loophole of one of the pillboxes at Portland, giving a sweeping view across the coastline.

Unusual circular pillbox at Kimmeridge Bay in Dorset, again a victim of erosion, but still standing firm.

A spectacular one looking towards Worbarrow Bay, another of Dorset's amazing collection of pillboxes!

The fantastic photographer Marc Wilson has dedicated a whole project to the subject of coastal pillboxes and their relationship with the landscape, called The Last Stand. Check out his beautifully shot photographs of not only Britain’s pillboxes, but further afield across Europe.
http://marcwilson.co.uk/the-last-stand/

There is also a website featuring a comprehensive study of pillboxes. Check this one out for all the info you need to know!
http://www.pillbox-study-group.org.uk

HOLIDAY PIX

Wow, what a rainy and windy first day of 2014 we've had!!!

Just to remind you that we did have some sunshine recently, here is some pix I took over the Xmas hols, showing some great places in Essex...

Stunning blue skies at St Peter's Chapel at Bradwell-on-Sea.

The wind farm at Bradwell, creating eerie silhouettes against a dramatic winter sky.

Bateman's Tower in Brightlingsea, which is leaning over a bit, could be the bracing North Sea air!

Looking over the 1930s lido at Brightlingsea towards a line of brightly coloured beach huts.

The tide was definitely out at Brightlingsea, but the mud creates amazing patterns.

A classic Essex coastal scene, heading out of Brightlingsea, with marshes, flatlands and huge skies.

Abandoned boat at Paglesham, which I've often taken pictures of before!

Gorgeous beach hut at Shoebury.

A Christmas Day sunset over Southend pier.