G&B Arts: Screen printers par excellence

1950 – 1996

Founded in 1950 on a capital of just £100, G&B Arts grew into one of the UK’s leading and most innovative commercial screen printers, with clients ranging from Marks and Spencer to the Royal Shakespeare Company. At the time, most pictorial posters published in the UK were printed lithographically, with the great litho companies of old (such as the Curwen Press, Waterlow & Sons and the Baynard Press) enjoying a deserved reputation for outstanding print quality. But from the 1960s onwards, developments in screen printing technology transformed the print industry, which in turn offered new and more versatile methods for poster production.

Experimental screen print, G&B Arts, c. 1955

G&B Arts was at the forefront of this development, often taking a hands-on, experimental, approach in the search for new finishes and printing effects. The company was created by John Gorman and Lionel Beglighter – hence G&B Arts – with the high-minded mission of working closely with artists and designers “to create work that is pleasing to the maker and the viewer” (John Gorman, 1993). In the early days, confusion over the company name apparently led clients to ask for either Mr Gand or Mr Bart, with the result that Beglighter later chose the name Bart when his primary career as a songwriter and musical composer took off (yes, he really was THAT Lionel Bart, of Oliver! fame).

As commercial printers, much of G&B Arts’ revenue came from major UK businesses and retailers, including packaging, literature and point of sale material. But posters were always a key part of the business and led to collaborations with artist-designers of international renown. These included FHK Henrion, Abram Games, Howard Hodgkin, Ralph Steadman, Alan Fletcher (below), Gerald Scarfe, Gordon House and George Mayhew. Which is some list.

From the 1960s, G&B Arts had an especially fruitful relationship with RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company), producing memorable and striking designs. Some, like the posters reproduced below from the 1970 season, went on to win the coveted Council of Industrial Design British Poster Awards (designer: George Mayhew).   

                                    

Frustratingly, it’s not always possible to illustrate the astounding screen-print effects of these posters with digital photography. The poster for The Winter’s Tale, for example, has a shimmering golden lustre, while the 1965 design for Henry V (below) uncannily reproduces the impression of wet blood on the royal crest.

Other notable G&B clients included BIBA, Tate and English National Opera. For the former, G&B worked directly with Steve Thomas, co-founder of the Whitmore-Thomas Partnership, to create print materials for BIBA’s flagship department store on Kensington High Street. The accompanying poster, which features the actress Ingrid Boulting photographed by Sarah Moon, was another Council of Industrial Design winner (1971).

Although outside the strict scope of a poster blog, it would be remiss not to mention G&B’s output as fine art printers, with editions by Eduardo Paolozzi and Ralph Steadman (among others) and very high-quality reprints of works by Pet Mondrian and Terry Frost for The Tate Gallery. My favourite of these is Paolozzi’s Lots of Pictures, Lots of Fun, where the godfather of Pop Art visually alludes to contemporary artists he has influenced (Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein).

Another side of G&B Arts activity was its support for campaigning, often left-wing, causes close to the heart of the founder, John Gorman. This resulted in collaboration with Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop at Stratford East in the 1960s, the GLC (Greater London Council) in the 1970s/80s, and protest posters for the Anti-Apartheid movement (among others). The most impactful of these were designed by the political cartoonist and activist Ken Sprague, who had a close personal relationship with Gorman. His design for the Martin Luther King Memorial Fund (1969) was yet another British Poster Awards winner.

In fact, G&B Arts were serial award winners over its 40+ years in printing. A full list would be too long to reproduce, but notable success came with posters for the annual National Business Calendar Awards (1970s-90s), with designers including Whitmore Thomas/Kasia Charko, Brian Grimwood and John Hughes. G&B’s significant contribution to artistic screen printing was also recognised by a Design Museum retrospective in 1993.

The print works, at Shelford Place in north London, finally fell silent in the mid-1990s. Luckily, a more or less complete archive of file copies from the 1960s onwards was preserved by Gorman and his son (Jon). A selection of these posters, which have been kept in plan chests since first printing, are available for sale here.

Other examples of posters designed and printed by G&B Arts can be viewed online in the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Thank you to Jon Gorman for his help with this blog post and for his support in making the G&B archive available via Twentieth Century Posters.