£1,000
MODERN MADE | Design on the Move: Posters from the Shell Heritage Art Collection | 655
Auction: 29 April 2021 at 19:00 BST
lithographic poster, 1939, condition A; not backed
The ‘Everywhere you Go, You can be Sure of Shell’ series featured fine landmarks, historical sights and inspiring landscapes, all firmly located in the countryside. It was an idealized view of a rural order much sought after by the middle classes, particularly those from large towns. ‘By celebrating and making accessible such rural delights, Shell won the plaudits of powerful pressure groups who sought to protect the countryside from urban expansion and the destruction of rural amenities by advertising hoardings’. The first exhibition of these Shell posters took place at the New Burlington Galleries in June 1931.
Born in London, Eve Kirk studied at the Slade School of Fine Art between 1919 and 1922. She became well known for her oil paintings of metropolitan scenes and urban landscapes of which she created two for Shell, ‘Strand on the Green, Chiswick’ and ‘The Liffey, Dublin’. By 1932, Kirk was exhibiting in group exhibitions with John and Paul Nash. Works by Kirk are held in public collections such as The Tate, The British Council Collection, the Arts Council Collection and Imperial War Museum amongst others.