Anthony Gilbert (lots 1-10)

Anthony was not easy to know. Always immaculately dressed, the epitome of an English gentleman, he was also shy and reserved and not easily taken in conversation. But his work held so much appeal.
Willie Landels, (Editor of Harpers & Queen)

Introduction
Elegance and simplicity permeate the work of Anthony Gilbert, a leading post-war designer and illustrator during a renaissance in British advertising. Despite his retiring nature, Gilbert led major post-War campaigns for a range of leading brands including designs for Rowntree, Horlicks, Rose’s Lime Juice, London Transport (with ‘Enjoy your London’ series), and created the iconic Rococo mantel clock for After Eight mints still in use today. From the 1940s until the early 1970s Gilbert also contributed work for a range of magazines, including covers and pages for The Strand, Vogue, House & Garden and The Radio Times. A member of the Society of Industrial Artists, he supplied mural designs for the 1951 Festival of Britain.

Born in Leamington Spa, Gilbert trained at Goldsmiths College of Art in London followed by a part-time teaching position at the Bromley School of Art (lot 7) where he met his future wife, Ann, a student. In 1943 he joined the London office of the American advertising agency J. Walter Thompson, where Ann was also a designer, and working there for the next twenty-five years. At JWT he caught the eye of the young director Willie Landels (1928-2023), an admirer of Gilbert’s work since he saw his series of paintings for ‘The Four Winds’ published in the Lilliput magazine. In an interview with David Messum in 1996, Landels recalled Gilbert as ‘vastly talented, his excellence was unique, he had enormous taste - too much really…’

Reclusive by nature, Gilbert left London with Ann for Kent in 1969 before retiring to Charlbury in Oxfordshire. There, their house was filled with textiles, ceramics, and Japanese lacquer furniture that often feature in Gilbert’s still lifes (lot 3). A great admirer of Japanese fashion prints of the Taisho period (1911-1926), Gilbert enjoyed reinterpreting them in his compositions of ‘Patterned Ladies’, with similar flat patterns and sinuous lines blending Art Deco and Modernism (lot 9).

Always interested in exploring new techniques, his choice of media ranged from felt-tip pens (lots 2 & 9) to woodblock print effects. In the latter he adopted the so-called ‘wash-off’ technique that he had first learnt in advertising, where textures and colours of objects come to life, giving them three-dimensionality (lot 8). His still lifes with jugs and fruit on a tabletop are reminiscent of the more severe compositions of Ben Nicholson, where forms and shapes become almost abstract, defined by the juxtaposition of earthy colour blocks (lot 4).

Active during what was a golden age of British advertising, Gilbert followed in the footsteps of a galaxy of extraordinarily gifted 20^th century designers including such leading names as Edward McKnight-Kauffer (1890-1954), Edward Bawden (1903-1989) and Eric Ravilious (1903-1942).


ANTHONY GILBERT (BRITISH 1916-1995)
STILL LIFE WITH LACQUERED CUP AND APPLE
gouache with varnish on board
21 x 16cm; 8 1/4 x 6 1/4in (35 x 29.5cm; 13 3/4 x 11 1/2in, framed)

Exhibited
London, David Messum, Anthony Gilbert, 2012, no. 64