How would the everyday person encounter contemporary art in the 1930s? Commuters in the City were likely to pass designs by renowned artists of the day on London Transport’s innovative posters, and those outside of London could occasionally get the chance to view contemporary artworks via travelling exhibitions.
However, opportunities for prolonged, enriching contact with contemporary art was limited. Most of the UK population didn’t live within proximity of an art gallery or museum, and the public’s ability to purchase art for personal enjoyment was restricted by the dominance in the affordable art market of poor-quality reproductions of Old Master paintings.
Robert Wellington and John Piper sought to rectify this situation. In 1936, the two men – the former the young director of London’s Zwemmer Gallery, the latter a highly regarded art critic, known for the journal Axis he published with his wife Myfanwy – founded Contemporary Lithographs Ltd. with a clear mission: to provide the public with affordable, original, relevant artworks by contemporary artists.
Lithographs seemed the ideal format for their novel enterprise. Lithography is a printmaking process which involves drawing a design onto a flat stone or plate using an oil-based crayon or ink, and then, through a chemical reaction that occurs after applying a layer of gum arabic, affixing the greasy design to the surface. Not only was lithography a cheaper process than engraving or etching, but Wellington and Piper’s choice of auto-lithography, where each artist draws directly onto the surface themself, facilitated originality.
By commissioning limited edition, colour auto-lithographs from a range of established contemporary artists, including Vanessa Bell, Paul Nash, Frances Hodgkins, and Harold Sandys Williamson, Contemporary Lithographs Ltd. could showcase art produced in the present day and offer desirable and reasonably priced prints. Whilst the firm’s first series was particularly aimed at encouraging schools to decorate their walls with meaningful and engaging art for children, Wellington and Piper were not limited in their vision. They believed that the public at large should experience enrichment through interaction with ‘living’ art.
Although few of the commissioned artists had prior experience of lithography, assistance from Piper and the craftsmen at the Curwen Press (the site in Plaistow, east London, where the lithographs were produced), translated into promising feats: an exhibition in 1937 of the firm’s first series of lithographs received approving reviews from The Times and The New Statesman and Nation.Its second series, issued in 1938, too achieved positive results, such as the purchase of 17 prints by the V&A (now in our Department of Art, Architecture, Photography, and Design).
However, neither of the series attained commercial success. Whether from the scheme’s novelty or from Wellington and Piper’s lack of insight and planning in distribution and marketing, Contemporary Lithographs Ltd. ultimately failed in its mission to provide a public good by permeating homes and schools with contemporary art. Yet, whilst the firm ceased business in 1939, its pioneering vision lived on – notably inspiring Brenda Rawnsley’s School Prints Ltd. during the 1940s – and continues to resonate with us today.
