Beguiling tiling
I’ve posted before about the wonderful shop fronts built by the W H Smith chain in the 1920s and 1930s, most of which have now vanished. My recent post about a tiled shop front in London reminded me that I meant to return to this subject, to look at a favourite example of W H Smith tiling, still in situ in Malvern.
Smith’s shop front in the hillside town centre of Great Malvern is recessed slightly from the building line, leaving two narrow strips, like exterior window reveals, at right-angles to the street. The two wonderful tiled panels in my photographs are set at the top of these strips, and so are rather easy to ignore. How typical of the painstaking design of the time that such trouble should be taken with these easily overlooked spaces.
And what amazing images their ceramic artist produced. The car rattling along in the ‘Road maps’ panel conjures up all the optimism of the open road in the 1920s. There’s little hint of where the scene might be set (it could just as well be France as Worcestershire), but the sun is out and the road, we feel, is empty ahead. The driver has read his road map and he’s opened the throttle.
On the other side of the shop front. the bridge, gatehouse, and castle keep that advertise ‘Post cards’ are rendered in an extraordinary palette of purples, browns, and blues. The great tower seems hugely out of scale and oddly positioned in relation to the bridge. But who cares? This expressionist architecture lit by the stars (and the moon, which is presumably somewhere over the artist’s right shoulder) is simply stunning, the buildings reminiscent of the fantasy townscapes of F L Griggs, but with colour poured in, for good measure.
How fortunate that these two images have survived, while the rest of the frontage has been adapted and painted over. Their light is from another age, but still it shines.
14 comments:
...and long may it shine too! Such beautiful tiles; they remind me of those wonderful vintage railway posters. When I'm next in Gteat Malvern I'll keep a look out for these.
VK: You'll really like them, I'm sure.
Lovely stuff. They remind me of the posters for the London underground in a book I have. The Art Deco stuff from the twenties are very like the Smiths tiles.
Bazza’s Blog ‘To Discover Ice’
Bazza: Yes, I see what you mean. That was a fascinating period for London transport advertising.
Wonderful. I think it's time for a revival of illustrative tiling, but only if the shop or office is going to have the same owners for more than a week.
Peter: I wholeheartedly agree. And let's hope we do get more shops that last on our High Streets. We need them badly.
Let's look out for more of these old illustrative tiles too. There's a Leicester example that I must look at soon.
now those are really smashing!!! and as peter says, we've had the resurgence in things like woodcut wallpapers - why not in illustrative tiling too?
Thank you so much for pointing out those beautiful tiles! As a medievalist AND a fan of German Expressionist cinema, I just love that "Post cards" panel.
But what I find even more fascinating, perhaps, is the contrast between the tiles which works on so many different levels: There’s motorized modernity vs. the Middle Ages, there’s the open road vs. the enclosed space of the fortified town/castle, and of course there’s the bright sunny day vs. the dimly lit nocturnal scenery. Actually, I was so intrigued by the latter that I just looked up the building's position on Google Maps/Street View: If I’m not mistaken, the "sunny" panel is located on the northern side of the entrance, i.e. facing south so that it really would be illuminated by sunlight during the day. The "nocturnal" panel, on the other hand, faces north so that, I imagine, it receives little or no direct light at all and remains pretty much in the shadow most of the time. I wonder if that's merely a coincidence...
So, in my opinion, whoever conceived the tiles seems to have put quite some thought into them and aimed for more than simply illustrating the subjects of "Road maps" and "Post cards". Quite amazing, really. Thanks again for putting them up here!
c.
C: Thanks for that fascinating comment. You're right about the orientation of the panels. That had not struck me, although I'd noticed the contrast between the two in terms of subject, time of day, and so on. A very great deal of thought went into these tiles and into Smith's shop fronts generally - after all some of them were emblazoned with apposite quotations from English literature. And maybe we should not be surprised. This was a great age of advertising and presentation: think of the effort that went into the graphics and decoration used on the London tube in this era, as alluded to by Bazza in his comment above. The whole period is an inspiration in terms of posters, graphics, maps, etc, etc.
Beautiful tile work. Reminded me of some of the early 'Sunset Magazine' covers here in the US.
James Morgan
Olympia WA USA
They are brilliant...what fantastic little gems you find Mr. Wilkinson!
James: I didn't know the Sunset magazine covers, but have now found a number online: fascinating.
Vinogril: Thank you so much! If only chain stores like Smith's took as much trouble with their shop fronts today...
What pleasing parallels can be drawn with WH Smith at Gatwick Airport where the queue to buy a copy of Foxhunter Monthly can be longer than the full internal one has just enjoyed at security.
How true, Ron, How true.
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