This is the Greatest...

No.1: The (media) Edit

This classic sketch, in trad parlance, "tells it like it is". I've not been able to source the first time it was created - but plenty of versions of this illustration have come and gone over the years. Even in our post-film digital landscape, the scissors remain the symbol of the edit...

c.1985

c.1994

Op Art

Deep within the pages of the October 1965 issue of the classic Rave Magazine (Where it's all happening!) there's a quarter length advert for "fantabulous" Op-Art Brooches. There were three different designs to choose from, each with a so-very-'65 name: The Who, The Trend, The Help.

The Op Art bandwagon had been well and truly jumped on following the impact of Bridget Riley's work in the early 60s, and it was fifty years ago in 1964 when Time Magazine (who would later coin the term 'Swinging London') dubbed the hip new art movement that was happening on both sides of the Atlantic as 'Op Art'.

'Pictures That Attack The Eye': Time Magazine October 23rd 1964

Op of the Charts - October 1965

I.O.U.

The Big Jig

A company called Good-Win produced a series of budget-priced cardboard jigsaw puzzles of Famous London Scenes - most likely during the mid to late 1950s. There were two sets - the first were numbered 1-4 (Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Thames Embankment, Tower Bridge) and the second set were numbered 5-8. The latter being of rather more interest as they all depicted London Markets.

No.6 is Covent Garden Market. It's the only example of the Market Series that I've come across so far. The illustration is a bit rough and ready, though it does capture a flavour of a bustling morning with fruit, vegetables and flowers being carted around the crowded streets. 

It's likely that piles of boxes of The Big Jig jigsaws ended up on stalls down Petticoat Lane Market once their shop shelf-life days were over. I wonder how many of the Series 8 puzzle (Petticoat Lane) still survive intact today?