Bold type for his time
The Poster Man... John Vincent takes a close look at the handiwork of a little-remembered Art Deco master of the promotional billboard.
He is a largely forgotten figure today. But in the “long weekend” between the wars, the name of AE Halliwell was central to the kaleidoscope world of Art Deco, with its glamour and exuberance, loud, vibrant colours, exaggerated curves and zigzag angles.
Now the unsung champion of commercial art and design during the Twenties and Thirties is to have a belated moment in the limelight when a vast collection of his original poster artwork is offered at auction by his family.
The online studio sale at Canterbury Auction Galleries on April 9 and 10 features more than 300 designs, mainly in gouache, with prices ranging from a few hundred to many thousands of pounds each. He worked his magic with posters for numerous companies and organisations, among them
London Underground, British Rail, Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Club, Kellogg’s, matchmakers Bryant & May, Boots the Chemist, London Zoo and, in a nod to his roots, Southport Flower Show, Southport Water Carnival and the town’s art school where he studied.
Much of his Deco artwork – in a style also influenced by Modernism and the Bauhaus art movement – is designed without typography, intended to be worked into completed posters with dates and advertisements later.
Little is known about Albert Edward Halliwell (1905-1986), except the bare facts. But if the name does ring a bell it may be because you have seen the Halliwell Collection at the National Arts Education Archive based at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield. It is this collection, which includes work done as a student and as a professional posterist, that is to go under the hammer in Kent next month.
Southport-born Halliwell went on to study at the Royal College of Art and practised as a professional designer from the 1930s onwards while also teaching at the RCA, Camberwell School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design.
With his mastery of colour, typography and design, his artwork epitomised the optimism of the inter-war years and the Deco movement which influenced all walks of life, including pottery (Clarice Cliffe and Susie Cooper, for example), buildings, furniture, paintings, cinemas, trains, ocean liners, cars, jewellery – even radios and kitchen appliances. From 1939, he contributed to the war effort with a string of posters, including Dig for Victory and Keep Them Working.
His representations of the age of a forgotten, less frenetic age of glamour and exuberance live on with a display at the London Transport Museum and, from next month, in the homes of new collectors.
His artwork epitomised the optimism of the inter-war years and the Deco movement.