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Raven-Hill. From almost the first, his connexion with the journal in question has been a very intimate one. Hardly a number is without a specimen of his powerful drawing and his gift of comic invention. While suggesting, in the best sense, the style of the incomparable Charles Keene, Mr. Raven-Hill's work in black and white is the outcome of his own personality. It would have been strange if this very modern artist had not produced pictorial posters: his talent was perfectly adapted to his doing so with success. His small bills for "Pick-Me-Up" are vigorous in drawing, bold in colour, and of a pleasant fantasy. They only measure twenty by thirty inches, but they are very telling. A complete set of them is a most desirable addition to the collector's portfolio. Another accomplished member of the staff of "Pick-Me-Up," Mr. Edgar Wilson, has designed a bill for the recently defunct journal, "The Unicorn." It is effective, but to me personally, the colour scheme is even more crude than the exigencies of a poster demand. Mr. Reginald Cleaver, whose sketches of scenes in the House of Commons created so favourable an impression in "The Daily Graphic," has not yet, I believe, deliberately produced a pictorial poster; but one of his drawings, reproduced on a large scale, lends itself well enough to the purposes of mural advertisement. Mr. Sydney Adamson, the art editor of
"To-day" and "The Idler," has done a bill which, when it is seen, will be Jield, I have small doubt, a very striking performance. It is happily conceived and boldly executed, and should make a striking patch of colour on the hoardings.
Merely to chronicle the names of the innumerable Wilsons who are producing pictures would take quite a considerable space. It may be noted in passing that, like Edgar of that name, Mr. W. Wilson has also attempted an affiche.
Among others who have designed posters which have yet to be seen an the hoardings are Mr. Max Cowper, Mr. A. R. Miller, Mr. Kerr Lawson, Mr. F. H. Townsend, whose black and white work one meets everywhere, Mr. Roche, a prominent member of the Glasgow School, and one of the greatest living English artists, Mr. Phil May.
Mr. Phil May is not the only "Punch" man who has been seized with the prevailing mania for the production of posters. His colleague, Mr. Bernard Partridge, has already designed one which is reproduced in these pages. One associates Mr. Partridge with dainty and idyllic work rather than with work which is vigorous, but his first essay in the poster seems to me to be very promising. Mr. J. T. Manuel's work is as unlike that of Mr. Bernard Partridge as possible. His pictures might be by a clever member of the young French School who