Onwards and Upwards

Just an indication of where I will be selling in December:

3rd Dec - Spitalfields

4th Dec - York Hall, Bethnal Green

10th Dec - Ivydale School (my daughters Xmas Fair!!!) - The great Andy Tuohy will be there too

17th Dec - Brixton Market Fair

I will also be putting some new posters on the webshop (link on the left) over the next few days, including some Munich Olympic ones from 1972.  There will be a couple of French ones too.

Just to scare you, it's Christmas soon!  

A big hello to Midcentury Magazine readers and casual browsers.  The modernish shop can be easily reached by using the link on the left.  We have got some great new items...including ceramics, posters, books

Picking up random ephemera

I found this old christmas card recently.  An amazing circus screenprint (hardly a christmassy subject!)  It's signed Arrobus and some casual research tells me that this is Sydney Arrobus, who was working around the 2nd world war.  I can't find any more of work by him in this manner, but I think this is a really lovely stylised work and would like to know more...anybody...?

Heygate

I too this photo from Elephant and Castle Station, however it seems that the goodbye to the Heygate Estate won't happen overnight, with final demolition activities not scheduled until 2015 due to the quantity of asbestos removal.

I have never lived here or even lived in a huge multi-occupancy estate, but a feel a sense of sadness that this building is going, or that the "experiment" of large social housing projects has deemed to have failed.

Strange that the fitted interior ethos - e.g. the furniture, home-wares etc - remain and has so much current resonance.

Sunday 16 Oct...

...I will be at the Vintage Fashion Fair at Cecil Sharp House, Regents Park Road. Lots of midcentury ceramics and dare I say "vintage" (today's dirty word) for sale...including this great French enamel coffee pot.  No markings...whaddyathink 1960s? 1970s?

By the way Cecil Sharp House is the home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, which houses this great mural by Ivor Hitchens.  Hey nonny nonny indeed, dude.

It's so bracing...

Skegness is so bracing.  Proper brass monkeys!

This amazing original print by Kenneth Steel from 1956 can be yours!

More Shopping

...and where else can I get to see your poster wares Mr Modernish?

...why here: at 123 in Shoreditch!

...surely Mr Modernish you have become to too hip for us!

Shopping Around with Modernish

You can find, touch and feel some of my stuff at Siecle on Lordship Lane, East Dulwich.  I think it looks great. Even the rain abated and sun came out for the photos.

Family Fun

Reports on the Family Fair on Peckham Rye are not favourable: £5 for half an hour on a bouncy castle (admittedly a big one, but £5!)

You could splash out on this fairground attraction (click on shop link, left).  Displayed against Stuart Road Allotments...what more could you ask...look at those cabbages (...not available in the shop)!

Homewood

Some inspiration: Patrick Gwynne's Modernist home in Esher Surrey.  Pictures by ModernishZoe - you will have to go on the tour to see the inside as there were no photos allowed!

You also couldn't go wrong owning this book detailing other buildings in the UK in the Modernist style.

Where are we...

Come along to...

Sunday 4th September - FEAST in West Norwood

Sunday 11th September - YORK HALL FURNITURE FLEA in Bethnal Green

...have a cup of tea at least!

New things

A few nice things which are for sale...

...something for the pipe smoker in your life (by Anita Nylund for Jie Gantofta)

...something for the good-living strawberry fan...(Arabia)

and any zoologists with a passion for ceramics should love this cruet set...(Hornsea)

Under the Weather?

A great series of get well soon cards I recently found.  From the 1960s I guess.  It's probable the effect of getting of these cards had the desired rehabilitating effect and the patient is still in robust health to this day, aged 123 and a quarter...

Southbank Update

Unfortunately this is "the face" of Modernish, after Di Caprio and Depp dropped out! Apparently a man more suited to selling cheese than midcentury wares...cruel...but maybe fair...

We met some lovely people at the Southbank and sold some great design items. One or two deals have happened subsequently (more of in future posts).  Top selling items: Framed London Bus Posters, money boxes and Scandinavian wares: mostly Figgjo Flint and Rorstrand.

Southbank this weekend!!!

The Southbank vintage festival is this weekend.  The vintage village is free for visitors, so doll yourselves up like these birds and come along.  

Shopping

You can now buy my products.  Click on the link on the left

Look after the Pennies

Storing your shrapnel down the back of the sofa? Bored of that out-sized Bells Whisky bottle which is half-full of coins on the mantelpiece? Not got much of the folding stuff, but a pocket full of pennies...?

Let us look after your hard earned cash.  Pristine Carlton Ware late 1960s/early 1970s money boxes

Backsides

A proliferation of beautiful backsides!  All from the reverse of Midwinter plates and contain a lovely mix of font, style and imagery.  

Tomado Ketchup

Tomado shelving systems from the Netherlands are an ideal platform for displaying a variety of decorative items: functional and colourful, but adequately reserved to allow the pieces to be the main attraction.  I pretty much threw these items at one...and it looks alright (doesn't it?)

What you can see:
Top shelf:  a figure by Alexander Girard (modern reissue) / Figgo Flint pitcher from Norway
Middle shelf: a Portmerion lidded jar by Susan Williams-Ellis / a Keramik vase
Bottow shelf: a souvenir from the Berlin Jewish museum / an Italian Bitossi Hippo

Feast on This

Thanks to all who came, saw or even bought from my stall on Sunday at the West Norwood Feast.  Here are some shots from the stall. Unfortunately I didn't manage to see many any other stalls, but other traders were able to hand over some useful tips, thoughts, etc.  Feedback on my wares was really good.  All eyes next on the Southbank Vintage festival in late July.  More of which later...

Brush Your Teeth for the West Norwood Feast

In case you didn't know: eating healthy foods affords "good sound teeth" and, it appears, a nice post-war not-quite-the-end-of-the-ration-book hair style (and don't tell me that those carrots aren't organic!).  These posters were issued by the British Dental Board before they started publishing an array of chastening images of rotten decaying gums etc...ahem, anyway, food for thought!

For those in the South London area I will be selling wares at the West Norwood Feast. This is a much, much better occasion than the usual celebration of food, art, craft and local coming-togetherness than constitutes a local London festival.  Come along...

East End Art

As reluctant as I am to make this blog a description of my day to day activities, a family trip to the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, East London allows me to make a connection between one of the children's books in my stock and a exhibit at the museum.

This photo shows a tiny part of a large painting of children's playground rhymes which hangs at one of the staircases at the museum.  It's by Dan Jones, an East End artist.  The book cover below is by his mother Pearl Binder.  It's called "Misha Learns English", an early Puffin Picture Book for children, published in 1942.  Both have a lovely folkish style which I like immensely.

Midwinter Madness

Last night I saw the 1951 exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall.  This selection of Midwinter wares could have been on display.  I am hoping to get a pitch at the Vintage Festival held there at the end of July.  Fingers crossed.

Charles Cobelle Design 1962

Gay Gobbler by Jessie Tait c1955

Stylecraft series c1959

Astral by Jessie Tait

Tropicana

Bolero by Jessie Tait

Bali Ha'i by John Russell c1960

Stylecraft (from 1953)

Fashion Shape (from 1955)