News and Views

Harold Steggles’ Shell poster of Bungay has been bought for the town

POSTER PAINTS A 1930s advertising poster by East London Group artist Harold Steggles, depicting the town of Bungay, has been bought by the Suffolk town for £875 (including a buyer’s premium of 25 percent).

Following a fundraising campaign, the poster which features the town’s historic Buttercross, will go on show in the local library.

Former mayor and fundraiser Sylvia Knights said: “We were delighted to secure it for the town and can’t wait to put it on prominent display.”

It was one of 42 Shell advertising posters, mostly from the 30s, put up for sale by a former Shell marketing director at Christie’s posters sale in June. Together the collection made £22,752.

Harold Steggles and his brother Walter, were key members of the East London Group who came to prominence in the 20s and whose work, following a recent exhibition, is in the ascendancy.

Between the 1920s and 1950s Shell commissioned artists to produce colourful eye-catching posters and included designs by Paul Nash and Ben Nicholson.

Jack Beddington was responsible for the company’s advertising. Under his direction, artists and designers contributed to innovative poster campaigns such as ‘To Visit Britain’s Landmarks’ and ‘These People Use Shell’.

Top lot at the June 4 sale was Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Moulin Rouge – La Goulue, 1891, which made £62,000, while Anton Lavinksy’s poster for the film Battleship Potemkin, 1925, made £45,000.

Anton Lavinksy’s poster for Battleship Potemkin at the same sale made £45,000

BUYERS SOUGHT The government has placed a temporary export bar on an important Cézanne painting, on display in Cambridge for 30 years, in the hope a UK buyer will come forward. Cézanne’s view of the Mediterranean, Vue sur L’Estaque et le Château d’If, sold for £13.5m at Christie’s in February.

Previously it had been owned by the industrialist Samuel Courtauld who bought it in 1936 and passed it down through his family, it was on long-term loan to the Fitzwilliam Museum from 1985 until last year when a decision was taken to sell it.

It was one of the highlights of its Impressionist and modern art evening sale this year when it sold to an anonymous overseas buyer for £13,522,500.

Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said: “For almost 30 years this quietly beautiful painting has adorned the walls of the Fitzwilliam Museum where it has been enjoyed by countless visitors. I hope that the temporary export bar I have put in place will result in a UK buyer coming forward and that the painting will soon be back on the walls of one of our great public collections.”

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An export bar has been placed on Cezanne’s

Vue sur L’Estaque et le Château d’If