EXHIBITION of RARE signed RICHARDSON STUDIO Daybills

John

I have just added an Exhibition of a group of posters that are probably amongst the rarest of all Australian movie posters. Richardson Studio posters are quite unique but the majority of them were unsigned apart from the Richardson Studio details at the bottom of the poster. John Richardson did sign a very small number of posters during 1923 and 1924. Posters from this era are scarce enough but finding daybills with John Richardson's signature is very difficult indeed.

Thanks to Vesna and Kevin Brianton for some of the images and others appear from my collection.

I hope you enjoyed browsing through the images...

http://www.moviemem.com/galleries/john-richardson-movie-poster-art.php?page=1 

David

Some nice posters in amongst that lot.

Would it not be reasonable that the unsigned posters were therefore produced by the artists who worked under him in the studio once it was (well) established from 1924? Some of the greatest artist in history put their names to but never actually had a hand in drawing/sculpting the items that came from their studio often the studio was commissioned to produce the art - Michelangelo comes to mind.

John

From what I can gather, he might have been a one man band and it is possible he produced the artwork for most of the posters. Bear in mind that the studio only did Paramount daybills so it would not be that difficult for one person to have handled them all. That being said, there is nothing definitive and he could well have had others working with him. Its a pity that we will probably never know for sure

Incidentally, the Australian posters that are signed appear to have been randomly done. Frank Tyler signed quite a few but certainly did not sign every poster he designed. Same for Wynne Davies and others.

David

Certainly it is possible, but he would be working his ass off - Paramount produced just over 50 movies in 1924, that would need him to spit out one per week, and that's then assuming the movie poster orders were only coming in one each week too. And finally, what other work was he (Richardson Studio) doing - non movie poster work/commissions?

As you say, we may never know for sure.

HONDO

David mentions just over 50 Paramount produced films in 1924. You can add to this the Metro Pictures released through Paramount in Australia in 1923 and 1924 and there were a lot. You are now talking about a huge workload for John Richardson to do by himself. You also have to factor in John being sick or away at times. Someone else contributing to the artwork seems a more than likely possibility.

Hondo

John

HONDO said:

David mentions just over 50 Paramount produced films in 1924. You can add to this the Metro Pictures released through Paramount in Australia in 1923 and 1924 and there were a lot. You are now talking about a huge workload for John Richardson to do by himself. You also have to factor in John being sick or away at times. Someone else contributing to the artwork seems a more than likely possibility.

Hondo

Yes, that sounds likely.

John

A collector recently asked me how many different Richardson Studio daybills would have been printed. We assume that the studio printed daybills for every Paramount film between the 1920s and about 1960 but many have not been seen so its difficult to answer. I have images for about 500. Anyone like to hazard a guess as to how many might have been printed by the Richardson Studio?

John

I always thought it strange that the Richardson Studio never did the art for posters larger than a daybill. It would seem to be uneconomical to have the art for daybills done by Richardson but art for one sheets and larger done by different artists working for different printers.

David

John said:

I always thought it strange that the Richardson Studio never did the art for posters larger than a daybill. It would seem to be uneconomical to have the art for daybills done by Richardson but art for one sheets and larger done by different artists working for different printers.

Good question. Two theories I have come up with:

1. Richardson Studios was the premier poster designer of the time and charged accordingly, given the volume of 1SH produced at that time per title perhaps it was simple economics and they simply passed this job onto a cheaper art studio for such a small run?
2. Time - took too long to produce a design for one title on two different posters by the one studio. Movies were being churned out, I am sure poster production was quite frenetic. 

Also, do we know a 1SH was actually produced for every title?

Rick

great stuff John

John

David said:

John said:

I always thought it strange that the Richardson Studio never did the art for posters larger than a daybill. It would seem to be uneconomical to have the art for daybills done by Richardson but art for one sheets and larger done by different artists working for different printers.

Good question. Two theories I have come up with:

1. Richardson Studios was the premier poster designer of the time and charged accordingly, given the volume of 1SH produced at that time per title perhaps it was simple economics and they simply passed this job onto a cheaper art studio for such a small run?
2. Time - took too long to produce a design for one title on two different posters by the one studio. Movies were being churned out, I am sure poster production was quite frenetic. 

Also, do we know a 1SH was actually produced for every title?

I think one sheets were produced for most prominent Paramount titles and always using a different printer/artwork. I guess Richardson must have decided to only print daybills for some reason but can only guess at why that would be the case.

John

Rick said:

great stuff John

Thanks Rick!

If anyone else knows of any John Richardson signed daybills lurking in private collections, please let me know.