In 1894, Scottish artist James Pryde and English artist William Nicholson teamed up to create posters and other graphic work under the pseudonym "the Beggarstaff Brothers". The Beggarstaffs transformed the history of poster art with a series of bold, simple designs using flat images and silhouettes.
Their trademark style was that of presenting images in their purest form with the backgrounds stripped bare of unnecessary detail and making the fullest use of the silhouette. This is mainly what made their work brilliantly original. However, despite this, they received relatively few commissions and some of their designs were never even advertised.
Pryde and Nicholson’s first collaboration was in the summer of 1894 where the actor Edward Gordon Craig asked them to design and produce a poster for W.S. Hardy Shakespeare Company to publicize the production of the play ‘Hamlet’ in which he had a main role. The initial design was partly done using the collage technique in Craig’s hair and clothing in the role of Hamlet. The poster which was finally used on the printed version to publicize the play included plain black paper cuts and a stenciled life-sized figure drawn on brown wrapping-paper with specific features added manually. The last version of the Hamlet poster is signed as "J. W. Beggarstaff Denham Uxbridge” and was exhibited at the International Artistic Pictorial Poster Exhibition at the Royal Aquarium in Westminister in November 1894. Their design was also reproduced in four publications; in the ‘Magazine of Art’ of January 1895, in ‘La Plume’ of 1st October 1895, in ‘Pictorial Posters’ published in 1895, and in ‘The Poster’ published in February 1899.
During the same period of time, the Beggarstaffs designed and printed yet another poster for W.S. Hardy Shakespeare Company, this time showing Craig in another of his leading roles, namely that of Charles Surface in Sheridan's ‘School of scandal’ which the actor himself described as "absolutely splendid".
On the other hand, one of the posters they lost money on was that of ‘Don Quixote’, made for Sir Henry Irving’s production at the Lyceum Theater. This work was never printed as the clients decided that “it had a bad likeness.” Incidents like these caused the partnership to split up. In fact the Beggarstaff team only stayed together for a short period of three years. However their designs became highly influential with artists around Europe and USA as their style progressed towards the Early Modern era which put aside the floral movement of the Art Noveau.
Their trademark style was that of presenting images in their purest form with the backgrounds stripped bare of unnecessary detail and making the fullest use of the silhouette. This is mainly what made their work brilliantly original. However, despite this, they received relatively few commissions and some of their designs were never even advertised.
Pryde and Nicholson’s first collaboration was in the summer of 1894 where the actor Edward Gordon Craig asked them to design and produce a poster for W.S. Hardy Shakespeare Company to publicize the production of the play ‘Hamlet’ in which he had a main role. The initial design was partly done using the collage technique in Craig’s hair and clothing in the role of Hamlet. The poster which was finally used on the printed version to publicize the play included plain black paper cuts and a stenciled life-sized figure drawn on brown wrapping-paper with specific features added manually. The last version of the Hamlet poster is signed as "J. W. Beggarstaff Denham Uxbridge” and was exhibited at the International Artistic Pictorial Poster Exhibition at the Royal Aquarium in Westminister in November 1894. Their design was also reproduced in four publications; in the ‘Magazine of Art’ of January 1895, in ‘La Plume’ of 1st October 1895, in ‘Pictorial Posters’ published in 1895, and in ‘The Poster’ published in February 1899.
During the same period of time, the Beggarstaffs designed and printed yet another poster for W.S. Hardy Shakespeare Company, this time showing Craig in another of his leading roles, namely that of Charles Surface in Sheridan's ‘School of scandal’ which the actor himself described as "absolutely splendid".
On the other hand, one of the posters they lost money on was that of ‘Don Quixote’, made for Sir Henry Irving’s production at the Lyceum Theater. This work was never printed as the clients decided that “it had a bad likeness.” Incidents like these caused the partnership to split up. In fact the Beggarstaff team only stayed together for a short period of three years. However their designs became highly influential with artists around Europe and USA as their style progressed towards the Early Modern era which put aside the floral movement of the Art Noveau.
Reference:
Wikipedia, 19/11/14, Beggarstaffs, [Online] Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggarstaffs> accessed on: [10/01/15].
Illustrationart, 21/02/11, The Beggarstaffs Brothers. [Online] Available at: <http://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2011/02/beggarstaff-brothers.html> accessed on: [10/01/15].
Wikipedia, 19/11/14, Beggarstaffs, [Online] Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beggarstaffs> accessed on: [10/01/15].
Illustrationart, 21/02/11, The Beggarstaffs Brothers. [Online] Available at: <http://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2011/02/beggarstaff-brothers.html> accessed on: [10/01/15].