When Contents Bills Are Banished 'Would Not a White Hat, a Piece of Crayon, and a Suitable Facial Expression Be a Fairly Good Substitute?'

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When Contents Bills Are Banished 'Would Not a White Hat, a Piece of Crayon, and a Suitable Facial Expression Be a Fairly Good Substitute?'

Poy (Percy Hutton Fearon) (1874-1948)

Price

£550

Signed

Signed

Medium

Ink

Illustrated

Daily Mail, 6 March 1917

Exhibited

'The Illustrators. The British Art of Illustration 1800-2014', November 2014 - January 2015, Chris Beetles Gallery, London, no 95

In a bid to save paper and aid the war effort, Contents Bills – the posters that accompanied newpaper sellers and detailed the contents of each day’s edition – were discontinued in early 1916. As part of Poy’s suggestions as an alterative, he references ‘Cuthbert’, the rabbit he created as a symbol of the conscientious objector. Cuthbert became such a popular image that the name entered the English dictionary describing ‘a man who deliberately avoids military service’.

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