the drawing board
ZARA PICKEN COLLECTS ILLUSTRATED BITS AND BOBS.
Hi Zara, tell us a bit about yourself. I’m am illustrator living in the UK. I create illustrations for editorial, advertising and publishing for clients around the world. I have been collecting mid-20th-century illustration ephemera for over a decade.
How did you pick up this hobby? I have always been something of a collector, but ephemera became an interest when I visited Prague back in 2009 and spent time exploring antique shops (where I ended up discovering Czech matchbox labels). Vintage illustrations still felt relevant and I wanted to better understand their significance to my own practice. There’s a design appreciation side to it, but also a treasure-hunt aspect which is a lot of fun!
Why do you focus on the period between 1950 and 1975? There was a real shift towards fun and informality during this era. Illustrators were eschewing the conservative styles preferred by previous generations – instead they were choosing to embrace character, colour, wobbly lines and rough-cut shapes. The best work produced during this era was playful, stylish and witty, encapsulating not only the optimism of the era but also the ingenuity of illustrators adapting to new media and audiences. POST-WWII, people embraced consumerism, so I am able to find a lot of illustrated material that was produced to fulfil the new demand for advertising, before the rise of photography.
What do you love most about collecting this stuff? I like to collect pieces from this time as I don’t feel the artists or artwork have been fully acknowledged – probably due to the transient nature of ephemera. I enjoy researching their stories. There are many women and émigré illustrators who forged successful careers against the odds, and their work stands up well against the more celebrated illustrators of the time.
What makes a piece good enough for your collection? I look for striking images. If I keep returning to look at it again then I know it probably belongs in my collection. I am always looking for intelligent concepts with imaginative visuals. If an image wins me over on a more aesthetic level, I am usually swayed by charm, a certain combination of colour, shape and visual quirkiness. Having said all this, I’m a sucker for anthropomorphism and I will buy anything featuring an inanimate object with a smiling face!
Where do you find these treasures? There’s a certain romanticism to the idea of sifting through vintage stores, but the scope of items available on the internet is far beyond anything I would come across by chance in a local shop. I mostly find pieces online at ebay, Etsy and Abebooks, where I have finely honed my keyword-search skills.
What can we learn from your collection? Viewers can see how visual trends emerged and set a precedent for the images we see today, from the use of character mascots selling products to the decorative cover that persuades us to read the material within. Paper ephemera gives us an insight into how society has changed. For example, the existence of equator-crossing certificates shows the ceremony and value given to an event which is barely commented upon today.
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve found? There is a greeting card by Albany Wiseman (1930–2021) featuring a kangaroo with a joey, announcing the ‘birth’ of a new newspaper in 1961. It is an unusual idea but beautifully executed. The kangaroo is even holding a tiny newspaper!
Where can we see more? On Instagram at @ephemeramablog.