Felicitations to all you picture pickers, art acquirers and photo aficionados. With a very balmy October well underway, we are here to keep you abreast of the latest historical happenings in the world of Mary Evans. Read on for news on poster experts Onslows, Yevonde on the move, Lavery on location and a mystery artist uncovered. And in a nod to our lead image, don't forget that with Halloween on the horizon, we are here for all your weird and witchy image requirements.

The Big 4-O-nslows

A very happy 40th anniversary to one of our long-standing contributors, Onslows Auctioneers, who have been specialising in vintage posters since 1984. In the intervening four decades, the auction house, started by Patrick Bogue, has staged trailblazing auctions covering motoring, travel, advertising and war posters, as well as Titanic memorabilia.

Onslows are celebrating with a new website launch and a forthcoming sale that promises some of the most mouth-watering and iconic examples of the artistic poster. We are delighted to represent the Onslows archive, with images by the finest graphic artists on a wide range of subjects.

Visit www.onslows.co.uk to discover more and to see some highlights from their collection, we've pulled together some our favourites here.

Last Call for Yevonde

If you haven't yet got around to seeing the 'Yevonde - Life and Colour' exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, you have literally days to hurry down there before the show closes this Sunday 15th October.

We hosted a small group of clients at the gallery last week for a morning private view of the show, complete with a tour given by NPG curator, Clare Freestone.

It was another chance to marvel at the work of this bold and original pioneer, and to also see, for a final time, the black & white images we had supplied for the striking wall displays. Remember that Mary Evans Picture Library owns the copyright in Yevonde's black and white work and have thousands of her images available for licensing. Search Yevonde on our website.

And if you missed the exhibition in London, all is not lost. It's making its way to the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle where it will run from 11th November 2023 to 20th April 2024

Lavery on Location

In further gallery news, we were interested to learn that Sir John Lavery is the subject of a new exhibition just opened at the National Gallery of Ireland.

Lavery was an internationally renowned Irish painter working at the turn of the 20th century and the only Irishman to receive the Freedom of both Dublin and Belfast in the inter-war period, in a divided Ireland.

It seems appropriate therefore that 'Lavery on Location' on will focus on the artist's impressions of the people and locations he encountered during a life filled with travel, and includes many works from the National Museums Northern Ireland, whose collection we are proud to represent.

Lavery never travelled for business or pleasure without his painting kit, and this exhibition will explore some of the key destinations depicted in his art, from Scotland to Palm Springs.

It's an excuse for us to highlight the particularly fine selection of Lavery paintings we have available for licensing, with most examples coming via National Museums, Northern Ireland as well as a number from the Medici Society Archive, with various discoveries in the ILN archive documenting the celebrity status of Lavery and his wife, Hazel.

Click here to get lost in Lavery.

The Tale of Marjorie Miller

Artist Marjorie Miller's elegant, art deco illustrations which drew on themes of nature and mythology were published in The Sketch, The Bystander and The Tatler during the late 1920s and early 1930s.

We knew very little about the artist herself, until Ionna Papadopoulou, an art historian, began to investigate her life and career. Ioanna emailed a couple of weeks ago to share her blog with us and the extent of her research (and her tenacity) in uncovering the details of Marjorie's life is astonishing.

In fact, we were so impressed, we'd highly recommend you giving it a read and discovering for yourself the tragic tale of this talented artist.

London Calling - A Noel Coward Centenary Celebration

Mary Evans Picture Library made its West End debut last week when our Head of Sales & Research, Luci, took to the stage at the Duke of York's Theatre on St. Martin's Lane to take part in a centenary celebration of the Noel Coward revue, London Calling.

Luci chatted with Oliver Soden, author of the critically-acclaimed 'Masquerade - The Lives of Noel Coward' about the historical background to the revue, before actors Damian Lewis and Indira Varma read a selection of sketches, with musical interludes in between provided by Robert Hazle and Georgi Mottram.

We've been able to supply the Noel Coward foundation with a number of pictures for different projects on 'The Master's' life and multi-faceted career, and with 2024 marking the 125th anniversary of Coward's birth, more events are planned.

The magazines in the ILN archive are a particularly rich resource for all things Noel Coward.

Click here for a selection.