Eric Thake (see a brief earlier post here) was an Australian official war artist working with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in the latter part of the Pacific War. Unlike many other war artists, he chose to make a significant proportion of his formal, main output as depictions of aircraft wreckage. Almost uniquely, Thake…
Tag: Philately
Clipper Clobber
From the excellent San Francisco Airport Aviation Museum and Library comes this neat 2013 exhibition catalogue. It serves as an insight to how an assemblage of aviation ephemera and collectables can pull together a good story of a now vanished age, with echoes of some elements of today’s airline experience, but many more differences. The…
Airmail Pad
Sometimes it seems every other post is going to feature a poster, so I’m always on the lookout for other things. Here’s a great one-off on the blog, thanks to my friend and colleague Maurice Austin. An airmail pad, or ‘writing tablet’. The aircraft is fitted with unusually effective landing lights! Over to Maurice: “It’s…
Cheerful Plane Postie
Today’s Poster, from Britain’s General Post Office (GPO). ‘Send Your Overseas Parcels By Air Mail’. So much going on with this artwork, but the basic design, by Harry Stevens, works very well with the postman figurine shaped like an aeroplane. Simple, Memorable. James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer. Image source: Here, details: original poster PRD 797…
Duocolour Bomba
A postcard today, from the wartime Italian era Ministerio Dell ‘Aeronautica. Of interest for two reasons – artistically, a limited colour palette is unusual in postcards and the like, and in aeronautical terms a ‘bombing up’ moment was rarely chosen as an art subject (although there are plenty of photographs, though, again, rarely as a…
Gentleman’s Concorde
Commemorating 50 years since the first flight of Concorde again (first on Vintage Aero Writer here) let’s take a look at a now iconic stamp design by David Gentleman, a remarkable artist in Britain, in any measure, and in many arts. Today the pre-decimal ‘1/6’ value in the corner looks like it belongs to a…
Koala to India
Just a fun one today, an Air India first day cover style commemoration of the first Boeing 707 flight between India and Australia in 1962. The chap is Air India’s ‘character’ used in the era, and obviously he’s decided to act like a local and copy the koala! First day covers are – yet another…
A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art 