Archives: Persephone Post

Perhaps it’s not surprising that both Jane Hervey and Mollie Panter-Downes have such observant, witty and interesting faces. This photograph of Mollie was taken by Lee Miller during the war: we had it on the Post on February 3rd but this is the original print showing Lee Miller’s signature – it’s in the shop window now, propped against an old wooden ironing-board (ready to iron the Churchill scarf used on London War Notes). Interesting that Jane and Mollie both wore tweed jackets to be photographed.  Well, a tweed jacket is such a useful look for a woman.,,

Most people in the UK should have had their new Biannually by now (if you haven’t please email or ring) – so this week the Post celebrates the two new books, London War Notes and Vain Shadow. This is ‘Jane Hervey’, the author of Vain Shadow, at the time her novel was published in 1963. You might tell from her face that her book would be funny and sardonic and a bit left-field.

And here is Sonia Delaunay herself, surrounded by her designs. All the reviewers of the exhibition have praised  the early work, especially the clothes and textile designs, and some have been a tiny bit bored by the later paintings. We shall see when we get to the exhibition!

‘What also stands out is her distinctively dynamic language of abstract forms that gave shape to her response to the fast changing modern world of technology and progress,’ writes GDC Interiors. ‘One moment she’s celebrating the birth of the electric light bulb, the next it’s trains, planes and the Eiffel Tower. Her engagement with technology is particularly evident in her iconic “Prose of the Trans-Siberian”—the “simultaneous poem” jointly produced in 1913 with poet Blaise Cendrars. A long folded sheet, this work merges image and text to weave stories of the individual caught up in the heady throes of modern life.’

‘Her passion for sewing abstraction into the fabric of everyday life becomes a foray into branding (her signature, and her look, on everything from cushions to headscarves). She needed to make a living for her family, and she did. The embroidered coat made for Gloria Swanson in 1923-4 is a tour de force of flying chevrons in coral, ochre and burnt umber, perfectly tailored to the film star’s body.’ (Guardian)

Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979) has always been a favourite at Persephone Books and we would have loved to use one of her fabrics on an endpaper. But we have not so far  published a French book that was the right period. The only contender would have been Dimanche, and Irène Némirovsky would surely have loved Delaunay’s designs; yet we felt  that a sombre, witty fabric was more appropriate. Now a Delaunay exhibition has opened at Tate Modern. It will be difficult to choose five pieces out of three hundred but first off: the quilt Delaunay designed for her baby son Charles in 1911.

This is in a way the most memorable photograph – a child who is prematurely an adult who will soon go out to work in a factory or a wash-house and then will have her own brood of children. On the other hand her grandchildren, born in, say, the 1940s, will have a much, much better life. Even if one thing this girl’s generation had that has vanished now – a fantastic camaraderie. Cf. Michael Young and Peter Willmott’s Family and Kinship in East London. We only had room for five photographs but there are more on the Spitalfields Life website and in the Spitalfields Nippers book (we have two copies left in the shop).

The mother looks very weary but the father looks far from downtrodden – and another curious crowd peering down the back of the alley. Every single one of Horace Warner’s photographs could be used to illustrate each page Round about a Pound a Week (published only a decade later than these photographs were taken).

Union Place in Spitalfields photographed by Horace Warner c.1901-2. Warner, whose day job was wallpaper printer for William Morris, took around 250 photographs of local children, of which thirty have survived.

The Ellis Sisters are wearing matching dresses, probably made by their mother who worked in the garment trade: the flowers make it likely they had been to a wedding, or indeed a funeral.