Anonymous

D.H.Evans London’s Most Modern Shop

Gouache, c. 1937

31x19cm (12.2×7.4 inches)

c.1937 vintage advertising poster design for D H Evans (now House of Fraser, on Oxford Street) following the construction of their new 1937 building (the building is still there).⁠
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Founded in 1879 on Oxford Street, the store grew rapidly and moved and acquired new premises several times. In 1928 it merged with Harrods and in1935 the company acquired the current site, demolished the existing buildings and created the store we all know today, as featured in this illustration. Designed in German Art-Deco style by Louis Blanc, Harrods’ in-house architect, the store provides over 8 acres of shopping space.⁠
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As ever with good pictures of buildings, the painting is brought to life by the figures and vehicles; without them it would lose all its point in the world. And typically for Oxford Street there is a London bus lined up, disgorging the next crowd of willing shoppers, and taking the tired and spent-up back home.⁠

Here the artist has a play on the shop being the most modern – i.e. newly built – as well as espousing modernism.
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