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Lyons Teashop Lithographs
During
the Second World War much of London, and
Britain's other major cities, were scarred
with bomb damage. The Lyons teashops had
not received any maintenance, other than
urgent structural attention, during the
five years the war lasted. They were
showing signs of shabbiness but little
could be done while materials were in
short supply. In 1947, Felix and
Julian Salmon (Directors), thought that
the interiors could be brightened by some
pictures and they approached Jack
Beddington (1893-1959), Artistic Director
of Shell-Mex, for advice. Lyons were aware
of the successful 1930s advertising
campaign which Shell Mex had undertaken
and this seemed like a good starting
point. They also wanted to encourage young
post war artists, some of whom had worked
for Beddington.
Beddington commissioned paintings, bought some, and chose
artists, no doubt with the co-operation of
Barnett Freedman (1901-1958). Freedman was
a leading authority on auto-lithography,
in which the artist draws the plates from
which the work is printed. He was the son
of Russian Jewish immigrants and was
largely self-taught although was bedridden
for years as a boy. He started work at 15
as an Architectural Draughtsman and
attended the Royal College of Art between
1922-5 and subsequently taught there and
at Ruskin College, Oxford. His lithograph
commissions included Shell-Mex & BP
Ltd, London Passenger Transport Board,
British Broadcasting Corporation, General
Post Office, the Ministry of Information
and he designed the King George V Jubilee
Stamp. He was made a CBE
in 1946. During the Second World War
Freedman was an official war artist after
which he became a successful commercial
designer and book illustrator. Freedman's
work with Lyons was mainly involved in the
twenty or so subjects being produced by
auto-lithography. No doubt he would have
seen the proofs of others and possibly
would have advised on them.
The first series of sixteen posters included some which
had been drawn to plate by the artists and
others which were printed using the skills
of craftsmen lithographers at Chromoworks
Ltd, London. The militant printing trade
unions were unhappy at the idea of
non-union artists creating printing
plates, but the compromise of half the
posters being the artists' responsibility
and half being handled by union
lithographers was sensible because not all
the artists were competent at
auto-lithography. The artists usually
received a fee of between
£50-£150, presumably depending
on their reputation and competence of
their work and whether an original was
used or auto-lithographed. Artists also
benefited, unusually, from royalties on
copies sold. The print run for the initial
sixteen commissions, and for that matter
the subsequent series, was 1,500 copies of
each plate. While most of the posters were
in quad crown (29 x 39 inches) some were
smaller. Although the plates were kept for
a time there is no record to show that
reprints were undertaken. It must be
assumed therefore that all pictures in
circulation are 'first' editions.
The finished
lithographs were introduced to the press
at the Trocadero Restaurant by Sir
Stafford Cripps, then President of the
Board of Trade, on 21 October 1947. By
special request a copy of the original
paintings, and their lithographs, were
retained and viewed by Queen Mary at a tea
party organized by the directors the
following day. Prints were stuck onto
blocks of wood (some were merely stuck to
mirrors) and hung in only 30 London
teashops initially but they generated so
much interest that shortly afterwards they
were displayed in all the Lyons' teashops.
Subsequently, lithographs
were made available for purchase to the
public at 12/6d for the smaller size and
17/6d for the large size. These were 1955
prices and there is some evidence that
earlier issues were less expensive.
Employees for example, with discount, were
offered the earlier series at 10/- to
11/6d per copy depending on size.
A second and third issue
of lithographs were commissioned in 1951
and 1955 respectively. While the first
issue included sixteen images, the second
and third issues numbered twelve each. The
completion of the whole project was marked
by an exhibition of the forty posters at
the Tea Centre, London, which was opened
by Sir Kenneth Clark, Slade Professor of
Fine Art, Oxford. Copies of the
lithographs were bought by a number of
museums and art galleries and when mounted
in glass frames were popular in our
Embassies and High Commissions. There was
a retrospective exhibition in the South
London Art Gallery in June 1977.
When the teashops closed
in the 1960/70s those lithographs which
had been framed were dispersed. Some were
hung in managers' offices at Cadby Hall
and elsewhere, others were probably kept
by staff and some may even have been
thrown out. Those which had been stuck to
mirrors were difficult to remove and had
to be scraped off. In some cases, when
teashops were refurbished, they were just
hidden behind new panelling with the
earlier bevelled mirrors and expensive
marble-work. A fine exhibition of thirty
posters was staged in 2004 by the Towner
Gallery, Eastbourne. A near complete set
of the posters (missing The Shire Hall,
Lynton Lamb, second series No 7) was
donated to the London Metropolitan
Archives by J. Lyons & Co Ltd in the
1980s. The Shire Hall gap was remedied
with an artist's proof supplied by Andrew
Lamb, the artist's son.
It is known that a number
of other artists were considered but for
reasons unknown their work was not
selected. They included: J. W. Roberts, H.
Spender, Robert Macbryde, Henry Moore,
Graham Sutherland, George Bass, Alistair
Grant, A. Cheese, Margaret Reade and
Vanessa Bell. There are some well-known
names in this list, who are now notable by
their absence.
Richard Russell
Peter Bird
October
2004
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