There were no fewer than four examples of this famous Edwardian image at this specialist sale, part of a cache of work from Hassall’s studio consigned to Dorset by a former standholder at Portobello.
Apparently, during the 1960s the consignor had got to know Joan Hassall, the artist’s daughter, who was still living in his Kensington house with the garden studio and its contents intact.
There are, in fact, several versions of Skegness but they don’t seem to differ much in price. Skegness Is So Bracing – It’s Quicker by Rail, printed for the LNER by Waterlow & Sons made £1700; the same image printed by Vincent Brooks Day & Son sold at £1600 as did a 1958 poster in which the Jolly Fisherman celebrates his golden jubilee with the addition of a pier in the background.
Also from this Hassall archive and sharing the broad, brightly-coloured, humorous style typified in the artist’s most famous work, was Metropolitan Railway – It’s A Pity To Puncture Your Ticket sold at £620 and a small poster for the British Vacuum Cleaner Company model FF (not the one with the skirt-chasing machine) sold at £440.
The top price of the sale was provided by The Continent, W. Smithson Broadhead’s rare Art Deco railway image of couples in a café that proved over-estimated at £6000-8000 but did sell at £4000.
Onslows, Stourpaine, May 2
Buyer’s premium: 15/10 per cent
Posters from Hassall’s studio are so bracing
John Hassell (1868-1948) produced designs for some 600 to 700 posters – including one for the British Vacuum Cleaner Company depicting a lecherous bit of machinery chasing a nubile parlour-maid – but by far his best known work is Skegness Is So Bracing.
