Lot Essay
In the 1930s, Shell launched a major new advertising campaign. Mainly in response to the protests of SCAPA (The Society for Checking the Abuses of Public Advertising) against poster hoardings and so-called ‘obtrusive’ roadside signs, they began to attach posters to the sides and backs of their delivery lorries. Shell’s publicity manager, Jack Beddington, commissioned these posters from established and emerging artists.
Beddington had a keen eye for talent and the posters introduced the latest in styles and influences from the contemporary British art scene, from Vorticism to Surrealism – with some of the most well-known artists in British contemporary art involved, including John Piper, Graham Sutherland and Ben Nicholson, as well as Paul Nash.
The campaign promoted the pleasures of the motoring lifestyle, and claimed that a wide range of people- from circus performers to footballers, used Shell. The slogan ‘You Can Be Sure of Shell’ aimed to promote good will towards the company, and to assure the motorist that Shell was available throughout Britain.
The present work is a double sided study for Nash’s poster, Footballers Prefer Shell (1935) and was gifted by the artist to his friend Philip Morton Shand at Christmas, 1938. Shand was a journalist, architecture critic, wine and food writer, entrepreneur and pomologist (expert on apples). Shand was an early proponent of modernism and a member of Unit One, the group formed by Nash that aimed to encourage new experimentation in all art forms.
The work is being offered from the collection of the late Baroness Howe of Idlicote, Philip Morton Shand’s daughter, and the late Lord (Geoffrey) Howe of Aberavon.
We are very grateful to Andrew Lambirth for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
Beddington had a keen eye for talent and the posters introduced the latest in styles and influences from the contemporary British art scene, from Vorticism to Surrealism – with some of the most well-known artists in British contemporary art involved, including John Piper, Graham Sutherland and Ben Nicholson, as well as Paul Nash.
The campaign promoted the pleasures of the motoring lifestyle, and claimed that a wide range of people- from circus performers to footballers, used Shell. The slogan ‘You Can Be Sure of Shell’ aimed to promote good will towards the company, and to assure the motorist that Shell was available throughout Britain.
The present work is a double sided study for Nash’s poster, Footballers Prefer Shell (1935) and was gifted by the artist to his friend Philip Morton Shand at Christmas, 1938. Shand was a journalist, architecture critic, wine and food writer, entrepreneur and pomologist (expert on apples). Shand was an early proponent of modernism and a member of Unit One, the group formed by Nash that aimed to encourage new experimentation in all art forms.
The work is being offered from the collection of the late Baroness Howe of Idlicote, Philip Morton Shand’s daughter, and the late Lord (Geoffrey) Howe of Aberavon.
We are very grateful to Andrew Lambirth for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.