Superb replica of 1930s Art Deco Dunlop Poster
Anyone for tennis?
A company is always more than mere product, more than a combination of design, production and sales expertize working together. By the thirties Dunlop knew this only too well. The company's early tyre advertising focused on what using Dunlop tyres could do for your car: improve braking, roadholding, comfort and, of course, safety.
After all, the history of the pneumatic tyre is the history of Dunlop. When he created some air-filled tyres for his son's bicycle in 1888, John Boyd Dunlop consigned the solid tyre to the margins of vehicular history. By 1922, Dunlop had perfected wired tyres mounted on a detachable flanged rim and switched to cord construction, which tripled the life of the average tyre. In 1927 Dunlop high-speed tyres were used by Sir Herry Segrave on the Sunbeam Special in which he set a new World Land Speed Record of 203mph at Daytona Beach, Florida.
So, through the 1920s Dunlop concentrated on technical advances - as did its rivals. What became important was not so much highlighting specific product advantages - for, then as now, the Dunlop brand-name was synonymous with innovation and quality - but simply reinforcing the brand-name. Today media-speak would describe this as "lifestyle advertising"; in the thirties no one had yet honed their jargon to such a pitch.
There was perhaps a feeling within Dunlop that the company should follow the lead of some of its continental rivals and produce advertising material which had an intrinsic artistic and cultural value: that Dunlop should, in some small way, support a number of Britain's finest commercial artists.
Perhaps this switch in emphasis was purely realistic. As Britain crept out of the depression, so the automobile could be seen to encapsulate freedom, hope and a social mobility which had, just a few years before, seemed out of reach to all but a monied few. Was Dunlop merely reflecting the mood of the times? No one can be sure. The company archives are concerned more with rubber compounds and details of tyre construction than the nuances of pop-sociology. No advertising plans were retained. Few of the posters bear a discernable signature, mostly these are anonymous mementos from time past. Research has revealed that these prints were used in a number of magazines. The London Illustrated News and The Sphere received the general interest pictures and The Field tended towards illustrations of a more sporting nature. Readers could also obtain copies of the posters by writing to Dunlop. The content of the pictures is revealing. This is storybook England: chaps in sensible slacks play tennis with apple-cheeked girls in starched whites. You half expect to find Richmal Crompton's William, muddied and dishevelled, peering out from a corner as he hides from the dreadful Violet Elizabeth Bott. There is also a relaxed air to the posters, promoting confidence in the products and maintaining the facade of the good life: this is an endless summer of strawberries and cream and sports cars with cheery exhaust notes. Chamberlain, Munich and the rise of Nazism in Europe were real: these posters were all about promoting an everlasting fantasy of afternoon tea on the lawn and cocktails before dinner. Yet it is their innocence and beautifully-weighted technique which ensures these illustrations The sporting poster represented just a small number of the wide selection Dunlop produced. Agricultural and industrial scenes formed one strand along with maps of Britain, castles, London bridges and seasonal pictures including a June wedding and a Christmas shopping scene. The artists involved included CE Turner, Terrick Williams, Gerry Wood and W Smithson Broadhead. Dunlop's advertising agency of the time, CF Iligham, was responsible for the reproductions. Here is Dunlop's conception of England at its most perfect. These posters are fantasy, certainly, yet they remain instantly identifiable as delineating England as she is often imagined by others, even today. Naturally the picture you are bidding on does NOT have the "SAMPLE" watermark!!
retain a charm and a quintessentially British vigour nearly sixty years on. You can see the influence of this fictional Englishness in modern fashion advertisements. You can marvel, too, at the way Dunlop still manages to maximize every message, however brief: the tiny panels of copy not only promote Dunlop as a tyre maker, but also a purveyor of wellington boots and other apparel resistant to the English summer.