Grey Horses - Tom Gentleman

Gentleman studied part-time at Glasgow School of Art, later attend ing full-time. He worked as a cartoonist and illustrator in Glasoow for some years before coming to London (1928) and joining Crawford advertising agency. In the thirties he was a poster designer for a number of agencies and eventually became head of Shell Studies at Shell-Mex House. After the Second World War he returned to Shell, retiring in 1952. He was a member of the Society of Industrial Artists. Grey Horses, a popular print, has the marks of a good poster - bright colours with a limited palette range, and stylized, simplifed images reduced to flattened blocks of colour. The overall impact gives an upbeat recognition of familiar things. The small boy in blue admiring the McMullen's brewery horses in Hertford is Tom's son David, himself now a celebrated graphic artist.  Full image