Nov 09, 2023 - Sale 2652

Sale 2652 - Lot 167

Unsold
Estimate: $ 3,500 - $ 4,500

HAROLD PERCY FORSTER (1895-1975)

GREAT YARMOUTH AND GORLESTON - ON - SEA.


39 1/4x49 inches, 99 1/2x124 1/2 cm. Waterlow & Sons Ltd., London.
Condition B+: minor repaired tears, creases and abrasions in margins and along vertical and horizontal folds; edges slightly trimmed.

Forster was a British commercial artist, who apprenticed for poster designer Fred Taylor when he was only 15 years old. He carried out a successful commercial art career, "though his public profile then and now is surprisingly low for a man reported in a short 1940 portrait piece (The Bystander, 17th April) as ‘probably the highest-paid commercial artist in the country'" (https://artuk.org/discover/artists/forster-harold-percy-18951975). Part of this discrepancy may be owed to the fact that he never exhibited in shows or galleries, and kept solely to commercial pursuits. He is best remembered for a series of BOAC posters featuring people looking skyward, towards airplanes flying along route maps. He also designed numerous other posters, including for the British World War II homefront.