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1930s Swimwear Advert
This is really a heads-up post that I have just bought a number of copies of Courier magazine from the 1930s which are so utterly 1930s that I expect we will be seeing a lot more scans from their...
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Kimon Evan Marengo aka Kem: Caricatures
Kimon Evan Marengo (1904-1988) was born and raised in Egypt, in Alexandria, and as a very young man of just 19, for a number of years he was editing and contributing to a weekly political magazine...
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1930s Caricatures by SIM
Yet more from these wonderful 1930s editions of the Courier magazine, and more caricatures, this time of theatre folks. I'm sure this is one of those things that is easy if you know it but I'm afraid I...
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R Clayton Skate Illustrates a 1930s 'Ghost Story'
These rather fine woodcuts are by R. Clayton Skate from, once again, a late 1930s edition of the Courier magazine. They accompanied a short and anonymous 'ghost' story called The Red-Headed Woman in...
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1840s Scrapbook: Murder, Lightning Storms, Wills and Dr Dee
On the face of it these two buff coloured card books don't look very enticing with nothing but newprint inside, but I have spent a fascinating hour or so looking through these two scrapbooks that date...
View ArticleA Previously Unpublished Snippet of Rolfe
I have today come across a transcription of a rather amusing letter by Frederick Rolfe, and since it has not been published in any way I thought I would share it here. The letter was in the possession...
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Vintage Photo: An Odd Hug
This excruciatingly odd but also amusing vintage photo arrived in the post today. One to make up your own stories about I think!
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Kazumasa Nagai at Swann Auction Galleries
I had meant to put something on the blog about the auction of Modernist Posters at the Swann Auction Galleriesbefore the sale, but I failed I'm afraid. Still, it was a remarkable catalogue of some...
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Philip Core
This self portrait of a somewhat intense and guarded young man is Philip Core (1951-1989), an American by birth who spent most of his life in the UK, an artist whose enormous potential was never quite...
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Kate Seredy Illustrates her own book: The Good Master
Sometimes a book just falls into your hands off a shelf in a shop or out of a mixed box and, whilst there is no question of you actually reading it, something about it, an inscription, the...
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Callum James Short Lists
This is the cover of Short List #18 that I sent out to people on my mailing list a few days ago. The illustration on the cover is a detail from a digitally inverted scan, of a paper negative, of a...
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Three Paintings of Men
A rather random post, but when you edit a blog like this one you find yourself squirreling bits and piece on your hard drive in the hope that one day they will make a post. These three images all ended...
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Two into One: Fantastic Creatures
Among the many things I bought today I have a particular fondness for these cards. There's no indication of what they we drawn for but they are all original little drawings that combine two animals...
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Front Free Endpaper 10 Years Old Today
Normally I don't make a big deal about the birthday of this blog, in fact, on a number of years recently I have forgotten even to mention it. However, as it was ten years ago today that I first sat...
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Corporate Purpose in the 1940s
These sparkly 1940s images are yet more from the brilliant Courier magazines that I picked up a while ago and which have featured here a lot of late. These are by the artist sisters Anna and Doris...
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A Vintage Swimwear Bundle
Another bundle of vintage swimwear photos came in the post today and this is a selection from them. The handsome chap above sporting his jaunty off-the-shoulder look is rather nice I think but I can't...
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Two Vintage Gay Novels
For many years now I have had searches 'set up' on a number of internet marketplaces so that, should a book I am interested in be listed, I will be emailed automatically. This is a great system but...
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Silhouettes
A few days ago I shared a set of drawings of fantastic animals that I had bought at an antiques fair. In the same envelope where these rather fine, I thought, hand-drawn silhouettes of people engaged...
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3 Pages from the Sketchbook of J. S. Barrington
No, alas, I haven't stumbled across a long lost sketchbook by Barrington in a dusty corner of a junk shop; these three pages were published by Barrington in his 1951 book, Art and Anatomy, most of...
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Mercury in the Courier
This will, I promise be the last post to come from these copies of Courier magazine from the 1930s and 40s! I have a particular devotion to Mercury and so I was immediately struck as I flicked...
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