Today’s 1933 poster is from the inter-war National Aviation Day Displays ‘Air Circus’ of Sir Alan Cobham, which ran from 1932-35. A simple, dynamic poster with space for a changing, local overprint across the bottom. The biplanes aren’t any real type, but the artist has got them ‘swooshing’ most satisfactorily. For many in the local…
Tag: Inter-war
Moth Alight
A 1933 cartoon from Punch by Leslie Illingworth. The text reads: ‘Man with a particular grievance. “Oh, it’s only you, is it? I thought it was one of those confounded motor-cycles kicking up a row again.”‘ I should, at this point say that if you don’t find this funny, it’s not your fault – earlier…
Beat Coach Class
Today’s Poster is from the 1930s, and from Deutsche Luft Hansa. James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer. Poster from the Smithsonian collection here.
The Case of the Generic Airliner
Today, rather than the perennial posters, here’s a nice souvenir, via Twitter contact Rob Feeley, of a metal cigarette case with an embossed Blackpool tower on it. But what catches our interest is the airliner passing the tower on the right. Now, while Blackpool has had a significant history of pleasure flying aircraft around the…
Green-Blue Night
Today’s art is an oil painting that would pass perfectly well as a piece of fine art in a chiaroscuro style. Actually it’s a piece for a magazine published in 1924 by the one-eyed artist Stockton Mulford – a biography of him here. Despite the beautiful colour, it was printed in monochrome, as shown here….
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,…
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…
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…
Far Faireys
Today’s Poster. Two copies of a Geoffrey Watson painting for the Shell fuel company. First image, the main Shell poster seems to only be in one online shop site the Omnibus Gallery, not included in any of the Shell anthologies I have. Second from the W E Johns and Biggles website here. James Kightly, Vintage…
A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art 