Percy Delf Smith Explained

Percy Delf Smith
Birth Name:Percy John Smith
Birth Date:3 1882 df=yes
Birth Place:Dulwich, Surrey, England

Percy John Delf Smith (March 1882 – 30 October 1948)[1] [2] was a British artist who worked in engraving, painting, lettering, calligraphy and book design.[3] [4] [5] [6]

Early life

Born Percy John Smith in Dulwich, London, Delf Smith took an apprenticeship with furniture maker Frederick Staddon before studying at Camberwell and the Central Schools of Arts and Crafts. His instructor in lettering at Camberwell was Edward Johnston, an extremely influential calligrapher and lettering artist whose Arts and Crafts movement style of lettering and use of Roman capitals had a strong influence on Delf Smith's career. Johnston's successor was Graily Hewitt, one of Johnston's pupils; Hewitt when he left recommended Delf Smith for the position himself. Delf Smith then established a career as a lettering artist and teaching the topic, publishing Lettering & Writing, a slipcase of lettering models, in 1908.

Johnston and his pupils' lettering work used calligraphy and extensive use of Roman capitals, such as those on Trajan's Column. Johnston wrote that "The Roman capitals have held the supreme place among letters for readableness and beauty. They are the best forms for the grandest and most important inscriptions."[7] [8] [9] Delf Smith shared this style, naming his workshop the Roman Lettering Company and commenting that Roman lettering has "content and atmosphere, and good examples convey a sense of stability and satisfaction", although his textbooks showed a wide range of styles and work by other artists and in other writing systems.

First World War

During the First World War, Delf Smith enlisted in the Royal Marines as a volunteer, serving on the Western Front in France. In his early thirties, he was older than most men serving. A lot of his war service was spent digging trenches behind the front lines, at one point coming under bombardment, seeing four men killed and six wounded nearby.

Delf Smith as a serving soldier and not an official War Artist was several times reprimanded for drawing because of security concerns, although he received more freedom to carry out art over time through making connections with other soldiers. Finding sketching unsatisfying, he requested that his parents send him some copper plates and he created drypoint engravings of the war around Thiepval before and after being invalided out from France in June 1917.[10] [11] [12] After his set of realistic depictions of the battlefield, he created a later series of seven prints, Dance of Death, updating the medieval imagery of the dance of death to the war:[13] [14] [15]

Career in London

After the war, Delf Smith returned to London, where he worked as a designer and artist through his company, the Dorno Workshop and Studio (earlier Dorian Workshop and Studio),[16] creating and executing designs for clients including The Sunday Times, the National Museum of Wales, King's College London, Southampton Civic Centre, the BBC, the Boy Scouts Association[17] and London Transport. He also worked as a book designer. Reading Wuthering Heights had a strong effect on him and he created several sets of art inspired by it.[18]

In 1928 he married botanist Ellen Marion Delf, both from then on using the name Delf Smith.[19] His wife's friend Margaret T. Martin described it as "the happiest of marriages".[20] [21] [22] One of his assistants was William Sharpington, who later established his own successful studio.

One of his last projects was two war memorial panels for the Free Church, Hampstead Garden Suburb.[23]

Delf Smith believed strongly in the artistic value of lettering, and wrote several books and lectures teaching the topic.[24] [25] [26] Shown are some lettering models from his book Civic and Memorial Lettering (1946):

Shown are some designs created by Delf Smith's workshop:

For the LPTB he worked on a variant of its corporate Johnston typeface with serifs for its 55 Broadway headquarters. The same design was also used at some stations, especially Sudbury Town and Arnos Grove.[27] Several digitisations of it have been published,[28] [29] and one made privately for Transport for London.[30] Delf Smith's drawings are now at St Bride Library.[31]

Delf Smith became a Royal Designer for Industry for lettering in 1940[32] and in 1941 he was elected Master of the Art Workers' Guild.[33] He died in 1948.[34] [35]

References

Cited literature

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Seton . Jim . Poignant reminders of war's impact on whole town . Bradford Telegraph and Argus . 19 August 2023 . en . 8 June 2018.
  2. Web site: Percy Delf Smith (1882–1948) – Find a Grave... . Find a Grave . 19 August 2023 . en.
  3. Web site: Percy John Delf Smith . . 19 August 2023.
  4. Percy Smith Memorial Exhibition . Journal of the Royal Society of Arts . 1950 . 98 . 4820 . 41364140 . 0035-9114 . Goodale . Elizabeth . 496–498 .
  5. Web site: Bleak Landscapes from West Yorkshire to the Somme: An Exhibition of the Artwork of Percy J Smith 1882–1948 Artist, Etcher, Calligrapher, Typographer . The Old School Room, Haworth . 27 August 2023.
  6. News: Loeb . Josh . Feature: Exhibition - War artist Percy Smith at Hampstead Museum . 19 October 2023 . . 13 May 2010.
  7. Book: Johnston. Edward. Edward Johnston. Writing & Illuminating & Lettering. 1906. Macmillan. 268–269, 384, 391.
  8. Mosley. James. James Mosley. Trajan Revived. Alphabet. 1964. 1. 17–48.
  9. Book: Tam. Keith. Calligraphic tendencies in the development of sanserif types in the twentieth century. 2002. University of Reading (MA thesis). Reading. 19 August 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150906080252/http://keithtam.net/documents/sanserif.pdf. 6 September 2015. dead.
  10. Web site: Percy Delf Smith: Making Art as a Soldier on the Western Front . . 19 August 2023 . en.
  11. Web site: Delf. Peter. War and Peace: the art of Percy Smith - Bradford Museums & Galleries . Bradford Museums & Galleries . 19 August 2023 . 6 August 2018.
  12. News: Leake . Stafford . War and Peace in the Etchings and Drawings of Percy Smith . 6 September 2023 . Bookman’s Journal . March 1926 . 215–221.
  13. News: M. . L. . The Dance of Death: a series of etchings by Percy Smith . 6 September 2023 . The American Magazine of Art . April 1922 . 121–123.
  14. News: Dodgson . Campbell . Campbell Dodgson . Mr. Percy Smith's "Dance of Death" . 6 September 2023 . The Print Collector’s Quarterly . October 1921 . 323–326.
  15. News: A Modern Dance of Death . 6 September 2023 . The International Studio . April 1922 . 138–142.
  16. Web site: Allison . Jane . Percy John Delf Smith, R.D.I. 1882-1948. . Allison Gallery, Inc. . 22 August 2023.
  17. Book: Rowallan . Thomas . Thomas Corbett, 2nd Baron Rowallan . Rowallan: The Autobiography of Lord Rowallan . 1 January 1976 . Dundurn . 978-1-55488-282-3 . 136–137 . 23 August 2023 . en.
  18. Van Der Meer . Carolyne . In the Footsteps of Emily Brontë: A Catalogue of the Art Work of Percy J. Smith, Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights. Hertfordshire: The Percy Smith Foundation, 2016. Brontë Studies . 2 October 2018 . 43 . 4 . 365–367 . 10.1080/14748932.2018.1503011. 218687771 .
  19. Web site: Women at Queen Mary Exhibition Online - Featured Women - Ellen Delf-Smith . . 23 August 2023.
  20. Martin. Margaret T.. Margaret Trevena Martin. Ellen Marion Delf-Smith, D.Sc., F.L.S. (1883–1980). British Phycological Journal. 1 September 1980. 15. 3. 246. 10.1080/00071618000650221.
  21. 62341. Smith, (Ellen) Marion Delf-. Fernanda Helen Perrone.
  22. Web site: Horniman History: Lectures given by Women . . 19 August 2023.
  23. Web site: Introduction to the Free Church Memorial display . Hampstead Garden Suburb Heritage Virtual Museum . 25 August 2023.
  24. Book: Smith . Percy J. . Lettering & Writing . B. T. Batsford . London.
  25. Smith . Percy Delf . Beauty in Signs and Civic Lettering . Journal of the Royal Society of Arts . 1945 . 93 . 4688 . 214–222 . 41361954 . 0035-9114.
  26. Web site: Pitt . John . Civic and Memorial Lettering – c1946 . All about Storytelling . 19 August 2023 . en . 28 May 2011.
  27. Web site: Stanley . Eric . The Johnston Delf Smith typeface at Sudbury Town station . YouTube . . 6 October 2023.
  28. Web site: Cortat . Mathieu . Petit Serif . 205TF . 23 August 2023.
  29. Web site: Bates . Keith . Possible . K-Type.
  30. Web site: Johnston Delf Smith. Transport for London. 23 December 2014.
  31. Web site: There's always one . St Bride Foundation . 23 August 2023 . en . 27 May 2014.
  32. Web site: Past Royal Designers for Industry. RSA. 12 July 2015.
  33. Book: The Journal of the Royal Society of Arts. 95. 190. 1947.
  34. Web site: EMDS - ELLEN MARION DELF-SMITH . QMUL Library . 25 August 2023.
  35. News: Sole . Kate . Forgotton etcher Percy Smith is celebrated at Forty Hall . 25 August 2023 . East London and West Essex Guardian Series . 17 February 2010 . en.

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