Mabey Collection

In August 1977 Mrs Phyllis Mabey donated a collection of over 300 posters to the British Council. She wrote: "I should be very glad to hand the collection to The British Council as a gift, as I feel sure that it could not be in better hands, and it will be kept as a collection and not broken up. I wish that the collection be preserved as an entity and that it should be known as the 'ALAN MABEY COLLECTION'. This collection was originally administered and toured by the General Exhibitions Department whose work, over the years, became subsumed into the Design Department. In 1996 the poster collection was handed over to the Visual Arts Department. The bulk of the collection covers the first half of the 20th century and includes prime examples of London Transport posters from the 1920’s and 30’s designed by commercial artists such as Edward McKnight Kauffer, Tom Purvis and Frank Newbould, some 40 posters commissioned by Shell from artists such as Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland and Ben Nicholson, posters advertising various department stores, dry cleaners, hair styling products and the like. There are also a number of early theatre posters by Dudley Hardy and John Hassall, as well as advertising posters by Aubrey Beardsley for magazines. Since the request, the collection has been augmented by post-war works by leading British artists and designers acquired by the General Exhibition Department.