The A to Z was created by Phyllis Pearsall (1906-96) who ‘researched London’s streets by walking thousands of miles, and making copious notes. The early maps were hand drawn, and key components of that style survive today with wider streets, clearly lettered using a sans serif font… Most importantly, the maps concentrated on the roads and not landmarks, producing a clear visual impression.’ There is a biography of Phyllis and a musical.
Women’s London: a tour guide to great lives by Rachel Kolsky is a new book which we celebrate on the Post this week. First up a nicely done collage of plaques to some of the women in the book.
Edgar Degas Ludovic Lepic and His Daughters c.1871. Degas managed to make this painting completely un-kitsch (always a danger with pictures of children): the father has an impressively wry look (is he trying not to look too proud?) and the two little girls don’t look easy, although totally sweet. This painting today is in honour of Fran’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Fran! She has been a crucial part of Persephone Books since it began – as has her sister Olivia (who brilliantly does our e-books). Fran made a pilot for a book show, filmed at Persephone Books https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSSPPh9lx2I&feature=youtu.be … It features her, Elizabeth Day, Beth Orton and Lemn Sissay. We are hoping it will be a series – because are there any book programmes on television? Very, very few. And are they fun, interesting and filmed at Persephone Books? No!
This is a stunning Vlaminck: what an extraordinary gift to be able to take a matching coffee cup, jug and sugar bowl, a thermos and another jug and two lemons (?oranges), oh and a tablecloth, and create such a beautiful painting. It’s 1907 so incredibly ahead of its time. Whatever feelings one has about Buhrle’s profession, and they are obviously mixed, there is no denying that he had a wonderful eye.
The star of the exhibition is La Liseuse by Corot c. 1845. Its provenance (here) is rather fascinating (and frightful): it was bought by Paul Rosenberg and then seized by Goring, before being returned to Paul Rosenberg in 1948 when Emil Bührle bought it.
Toulouse-Lautrec Au Lit (In Bed doesn’t have the same ring). Shall we see this as a tribute to the last episode of Fleabag?
There is a must-visit exhibition of Impressionist paintings in Paris. They belonged to Emil Bührle (more details here, in fact everything one could want to know extremely well done) and it’s on at the Musee Maillol 61 rue de Grenelle until July 21st. This is Monet’s Poppy Field near Vetheuil 1879
This is not actually Ralph Beyer but obviously he was an enormous influence. Yesterday The Second Shelf showed us round their beautiful shop and on the way there we saw this memorial to Frank Pick (shamingly, we hadn’t seen it before). The words are so stunningly important, and apposite to all our lives, particularly at the moment, that we could not resist having them on the Post today – although they are school of Beyer rather than Beyer himself. Here is the genesis of the installation: it’s an artwork commemorating the London Transport’s first chief executive, Frank Pick. It was commissioned by the London Transport Museum and London Underground’s Art on the Underground programme, and was unveiled on the 75th anniversary of his death, November 2016. Frank Pick was behind many of the now iconic London underground design decisions such as the use of the famous roundel, Harry Beck’s tube map, Edward Johnston’s typeface, and commissioning Piccadilly Circus station itself in the 1930s from Charles Holden, a modernist British architect. In the artwork by Turner prize nominees Langlands and Bell, Frank Pick has been given his own roundel, lit with LEDs, and text in bronze to the left hand side occupying a floor-ceiling stretch of wall. The text used was originally marginalia, a scribbled note in Pick’s writing, found by the artists while doing research at London Transport Museum’s archive (here).
Ralph Beyer, shutter-cast concrete lettering, 1961, for the porch at St Paul’s, Bow Common, Tower Hamlets. The complete Book of Genesis quotation is ‘Truly this is none other, But the House of God, This is the Gate of Heaven.’ Beyer handcrafted each letter and imprinted them into wet concrete.
There is a memorial to Edith Sitwell at St Mary’s, Weedon Lois, Northamptonshire and the lettering was by Ralph Beyer.