BITTER SPRINGS

Original British 12 inch x 14 inch well illustrated 8 page Pressbook for the 1950 Ralph Smart Ealing Studios Australian Adventure BITTER SPRINGS starring Tommy Trinder, Chips Rafferty, Gordon Jackson, Jean Blue, Nonnie Piper, Charles Tingwell, Henry Murdoch, Nicky Yardley and Michael Pate.

Cover art by Robert Medley

Charles Robert Owen Medley was born in Chelsea on 19th December 1905. He was educated at Gresham’s School, Norfolk, where he befriended W.H. Auden, at Byam Shaw from 1923 to 1924, at the Slade from 1924 to 1926 and in Paris from 1926 to 1928. He then taught at the Chelsea School of Art in the 1930s and 40s, in the theatre Design department of the Slade from 1949 to 1958 and was head of the Department of Fine Art at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts from 1958 to 1965.

His first one man show was at Goupil Galleries in 1930 and he exhibited with the London Group from 1929, becoming a member in 1937. He was involved in theatre as chief designer for the left-wing Group Theatre producing sets and costumes, and later for Sadlers Wells. He painted the safety curtain for the Old Vic in 1939. He was an official war artist for the ARP. In 1945 he contributed drawings to the magazine, The Arts, illustrating poems by Kathleen Raine. He illustrated two books, one, Samson Agonistes, he considered his best work.

The pressbook is in very good condition with very minor creasing top and bottom.