Today’s Poster. Written in Russian, in English it is entitled “From the British people Towards Victory! We are with you”, and is one of a set of posters that highlighted the collaboration by Britain and the USSR after the Russian federation had been attacked by Nazi Germany, starting what the Soviet Republics knew as the…
Month: August 2019
Gordon Bennett – Balloons!
Today’s Poster is a visually startling one, for certain. And for something some might even have difficulty believing in – balloon racing. Designed by Bühler Fritz for the 1932 ‘Gordon Bennett Wettfliegen’, or Gordon Bennett Cup. As the Wikipedia page says: ‘Referred to as the “Blue Ribbon” of aeronautics, the first race started from Paris,…
Tivoli Flyver Fest
Today’s Poster is from the remarkable Tivoli gardens in Denmark. It’s not clear whether this is a 1911 or 1916 poster (going by the aircraft looking a little like the Etrich Taube, I’m suspecting the earlier date). It is, however, by the Danish artist Thor Bogelund-Jensen and is advertising a ‘flier’s festival’ in Tivoli Gardens,…
See the Stampede!
Period art and design often features items that are regarded askance now. Today’s poster apparently suggests the use of an aircraft to stampede some of Africa’s more famous animals, with lions, elephants and giraffes running at speed from a swooping Fokker F.VII. I’m sure the real story was a lot less hooligan like. Entitled ‘Mittelholzer’s…
‘Aircraft Yet To Come’
Nothing dates faster than the future. The 1936 science fiction film ‘Things to Come’ featured several real aircraft in the present, and near future, and more, completely fictional aircraft as part of the narrative in the future, the last appearing in ‘2036’. A great run down of the various aeroplanes with stills are here in…
Quiet, Allison
Today’s advert from a 1955 Saturday Evening Post by Everett McNear. While no one loves the comfort of modern airliners, it’s easy to forget how noisy they used to be, and that an engine manufacturer could find it worthwhile to advertise in a mainstream magazine to extol the vurtues of their new, quieter engines on…
Not quite the nick of time
Today’s cover is from a 1961 Punch, by the redoubtable transport cartoonist Russell Brockbank. Like ‘Back to the old Drawing Board’ we featured from the equally remarkable Peter Arno of the New Yorker, this is another, albeit simpler example of a great visual joke, though here wordless. Another layer that’s easy for a viewer today…
Benz Power
It’s been a while since we’ve had a pioneer era item, and today’s poster is specifically advertising Benz engines for the pioneer aviator, 59 x 46 cm in size. The array of aircraft configurations encircling the giant motor, looking like an architectural memorial, seem to cover all (heavier than air) options – clearly for all…
Fair Flak
Today we have a children’s board game. The boxtop is pretty clear, it’s a Nazi German anti-aircraft game. Entitled ‘Adler Luftverteidigungsspiel’ (Eagles Air Defence Game) the box depicts a German 88mm Flak gun shooting down a British Bristol Blenheim Mk.IV (a favourite ‘target’ of German propaganda). The story, thanks to Board Game Geeks website: ‘This…
Is it a Bird?
Today’s 1943 poster from the artist ‘Percival’, as well as making editors twitch with some unconventional punctuation, picks up on a challenging visual theme – the question of recognition. Anyone operating aircraft with the Royal Navy in World War Two will be familiar with their ‘shoot first and ask after’ approach. The aircraft is one…
A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art 