“And he retraced his wanderings in those deep old lanes that began from the common road and went away towards the unknown, climbing steep hills, and piercing the woods of shadows, and dipping down into valleys that seemed virgin, unexplored, secret for the foot of man. He entered such a lane not knowing where it might bring him, hoping he had found the way to fairyland, to the woods beyond the world, to that vague territory that haunts all the dreams of a boy.”
A concertina toy peepshow view of the opening of the Great Exhibition by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The cover is olive green and decorated with scrolling acanthus (in pink, yellow and green), pale blue ribbon inscriptions and two vignettes showing an exterior view of the Crystal Palace and the arrival of the Royal Party inside.
Born in 1912, Barbara Jones studied at the R.C.A. and was a pioneer in the field of popular culture, demonstrated by the book ‘The Unsophisticated Arts’ – published in 1951 and described by Peter Blake as “a treasure trove of information about popular art”.
This poster was designed to promote ‘Black Eyes and Lemonade’ – an exhibition held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain. In association with the Arts Council and the Society for Education in Art, the exhibition explored a variety of popular British art – toys, souvenirs, printed ephemera and the like.
