£625
MODERN MADE | Design on the Move: Posters from the Shell Heritage Art Collection | 655
Auction: 29 April 2021 at 19:00 BST
lithographic poster, 1936, condition A-; not backed, framed
Plas Newydd, which means new mansion in Welsh, is a historic house in the town of Llangollen, Denbighshire, Wales. It is notable as the home where two Irish ladies, Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby (the Ladies of Llangollen) eloped and set up house together in the late 18th century, scandalising contemporary British society. Although originally ostracised by their families, the ladies and their unconventional lifestyle gradually became accepted, and their home was visited by many notable people including William Wordsworth, Caroline Lamb and Sir Walter Scott, the Duke of Wellington and the industrialist Josiah Wedgwood. Today, it is run as a museum by Denbighshire County Council.
Edwin Calligan’s poster perfectly captures the beauty of the country house, parkland and surrounding woodland. Edwin Calligan was a successful Industrial Designer and Commercial artist born in 1911. after some years at Dundee School of Art he Studied design in Germany intending to work for the stage. After working at Covent Garden and Sadlers Wells he returned to commerce and exhibited in the British Pavilion of the New York’s World Fair in 1939. His service in the Tank Corps in World War Two seems to have ended his career.