Description

Carter’s Seeds

Poster Design
Gouache
49 x 32 cm
Provenance: Family of A. E. Halliwell

Little is known about the artist other than the fact that he studied under the celebrated artist A. E. Halliwell. Halliwell is known to have collected a number of his students’ paintings and the fact that this painting was in Halliwell’s collection demonstrates that Halliwell thought highly of it. This painting is a poster design for Carter’s Seeds. Carter’s Seeds was founded in the early 19th Century and quickly established itself as the premier seed company in Britain and then one of the leading seed brands globally. This prominence continued into the first half of the 20th Century before the company was dissolved in 1960. Its advertising material was generally quite tradition, pretty pictures of fruit and vegetables as you might expect.

This imaginative painting bucks that trend with its surreal, dreamlike design. The grainy, woody, swirly form seems to be an abstracted seed packet, with a rose shaped hole cut out of its centre. Immediately above it is the rose that would have originally been pictured, set against a purple sky with other roses standing in for the stars in the sky. This is an inherently creative piece, attempting to redefine what advertising can be with its ethereal and whimsical approach.

Condition: Generally very good.

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