From a Facebook post come these two photographs of delightful period book illustrations from the Rupert Bear series, Rupert being a much-loved children’s book character in the UK, still going strong from these early adventures starting in the 1920s. Annie Hughes writes: “With thanks to a correspondent following the Ch5 Programme ‘British Airways- 100 Years…
Month: May 2019
3,000 km Across the Atlantic
Today’s Poster. Commemorating Italo Balbo’s 1930 flight of twelve Savoia-Marchetti S.55 flying boats from Orbetello Airfield, Italy to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil between 17 December 1930 and 15 January 1931. The poster is listed as from 1931 – I.G.A.P. Roma, 98 cm x 140 cm, artist : Umberto Di Lazzaro. This is where the term…
Eely Nude
Today’s Poster. Certainly not the sort of thing one might expect promoting a flying week. Apparently nude women in the reeds (with eel tails!?) were a thing in the 1900s. Antwerp’s 1909 week of aviation. (Anvers being the French name for the town.) The aircraft are (more?) realistic, featuring a dirigible, an Antoinette monoplane (probably…
Brassy Demoiselle
A very neat piece of silverware, with a brass aircraft, representing a Santos-Dumont Demoiselle. More later. James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer.
Night-Light-Mare
Two similar themed nightmarish civil defence warning posters issued by German authorities. The first has a skeleton riding a British Bristol Blenheim, while the lower one a very approximate American-starred four-engined bomber above a bomb-spitting skeleton. Turn those lights out! James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer.
Power’s Swirl
Today is a 1935 linocut, the original print being just over a foot square. A dramatic and dynamic work, by Cyril E Power, it fits well with his oeuvre, many of the linocuts featuring dynamic, swirling, moving shapes inside a square frame. It’s entitled ‘air raid’, which is interesting as it would be better entitled…
Service on Air
Today’s Poster.A classic from Fougasse, for Imperial Airways of his lightfooted airline steward. Fougasse was the pen name of Cyril Kenneth Bird, CBE. Not only is the poster a classic design with Bird’s light, sure penmanship, but it is, apparently in recent use as part of British Airway’s menus. James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer. Image…
Bristols in Cloud
A full page advertisement in Flight, today, from mid war – 1942. A neat graphic to show Bristol’s aircraft (here an approximate plan view of a Beaufort or Blenheim) on a repeat cloud pattern. An excellent, unusual design concept. James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer. Source Flight Global archive.
Daily Orient Arrow
On today’s Poster we have a request to use airmail (poste aerienne – and remember our recent aeroplane postman?) aboard the orient arrow which flew to Athens and Ankara in one day from Paris. A lovely 1930s(?) French airmail poster, full of neat period details. James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer. Image found on the internet.
Pan-Concorde-Am
Today we have a couple of monochrome artworks of a ‘retro future’ – two proposals that never came to pass. Posted by Geoff Hall on the Facebook BOAC page here. Geoff adds: “These pics were in a Bristol Evening Post supplement celebrating the flight of Concorde March 69. The Pan Am one is particularly…
A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art 