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18th March 2024

This week we have postmodern architecture (PoMo), a style which emerged in the late 1960s as a reaction against the austerity and formality of Modernism, and is characterised by its colour, playfulness and historical allusions. It has been much maligned and derided in recent years, and while seventeen PoMo buildings were listed in 2018, others have already been demolished or are at risk. This is Newlands Quay (MacCormac Jamieson Prichard and Wright, 1986-88, Grade II) in London's docklands: "Porthole windows lend a nautical appearance...and other referential details include red brickwork and arched openings that hark to Victorian dock buildings."


15th March 2024

 

Barbara Jones (1912-78) is best known for organising the influential 'Black Eyes and Lemonade' exhibition at the Festival of Britain (1951) and for her interest in craft, folk and popular arts (her book The Unsophisticated Arts (1951) is a classic). During the war she was associated with Recording Britain project; Launching of the Holland Submarine No.1 at Barrow 1901 shows the influence of artists such as Eric Ravilious who preceded her at the Royal College of Art. 

 


14th March 2024

Ethel Gabain (1893-1950) was appointed an Official War Artist in 1940 and produced two sets of prints: Women's Work in the War and Children in Wartime. The latter included this unusual lithograph, London Schoolgirls at Finnemore Wood - Camp Children in Wartime, 1940. She wrote in her notes, "This one of the thirty-one camps which have been specially built in the country and are now housing schools from the evacuation areas. At present there are about 6,000 children in the camps." We publish Doreen which looks at the experience of evacuation which for many children would not have looked like this.

 


13th March 2024

The female workers in Leaving the Munitions Works, 1919 by Winifred Knights (1899-1947) were soon to be laid off when the majority of munitions were decommissioned after the war, and we see here the return of the male population. They are a far cry from yesterday's munitionnette, and more in keeping with the tone of the WWI books we publish.


12th March 2024

Munitionnette by Ludovic-Rodolphe Pissarro (1878-1952), son of Camille Pissarro, depicts a First World War munitions worker. Despite the fact that this was a vital, wartime-only role, she is demeaned by the coquettish pose - she is a less muscular version of Rosie the Riveter wearing what could be a French revolutionary's Phrygian cap plus inappropriate shoes and green stockings - and by the diminutive name given to these workers. Nevertheless, it tells a fascinating story.


11th March 2024

To celebrate International Women's Day this year, Liss-Llewellyn has a small but fascinating on-line exhibition entitled Women at War looking at representations of women's war work. Canal Girls (1944) by Evan Charlton (1904-84) is a cosily domestic scene on a barge which belies the important work these 'Idle Women' carried out. ('Our' author Emma Smith was one, and wrote a book about the experience.)


8th March 2024

Covent Garden market was once surrounded by flower girls such as George Bernard Shaw's Shaw's Eliza Doolittle (Pygmalion (1913) and several film versions). This is Kitty of Frying Pan Alley (c1921, Aberdeen Art Gallery) by Oswald Birley - with her basket full of daffodils and anemones. Kitty worked in the East End of London, and the painting caused a furore when people were unable to believe that a 'clear-skinned' and pretty girl could come from such an impoverished background.

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