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A parallel in pictures to the world of Persephone Books.
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20th March 2024
Several important but unlisted PoMo buildings have already disappeared, including Egyptian-style branch of Sainsbury's Homebase, designed by Ian Pollard, built 1988-90, and demolished 2014 to make way for 'luxury flats'. It was typical PoMo in that it delighted some and confused others with its inventiveness, playfulness, and wit. The exterior featured a frieze carved by David Kindersley and his team depicting huge Egyptian deities including Seth holding a power drill. Not longer after, the C20 Society organised its first conference on Postmodern architecture and began its campaign to get more PoMo buildings listed.
19th March 2024
The Cosmic House (1978-83) by Charles Jencks (1939-2019) is perhaps the most famous and extravagant expression of Postmodernist ideas as applied to domestic architecture. Described as a "riotous living monument to his theories", the interior is just as complex as the exterior with "every corner alive with symbolism and allusion". It is now Grade I Listed and can be visited by appointment.
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.