CROMWELL

Original British 30 inch x 40 inch Quad Poster for the 1970 Ken Hughes Historical Drama CROMWELL starring Richard Harris, Alec Guinness, Robert Morley, Dorothy Tutin, Timothy Dalton, Patrick Wymark, Patrick Magee, Frank Finlay, Nigel Stock, Charles Gray, Michael Jayston and Michael Goodliffe.

Epic of the 17th century revolutionary Cromwell who led the Parliamentarian side in England’s civil war, beheaded England’s reigning Monarch, and gave England its only written constitution during his ten-year rule as Lord Protector.

Poster art by Arnaldo Putzu (1927 – 2012).

After studying art in Rome Arnaldo Putzu met poster artist Enrico de Seta in 1948 whilst doing illustration work in Milan. De Seta took him back to Rome to work at the heart of the booming post-war Italian film industry. In the early 1950s Putzu went freelance working for, among others, Augusto Favalli, a fine artist who had set up a commercial studio in 1946 employing several artists and collaborating with the production company Lux Film.

Around the same time John Davis of the Rank Organisation asked Eric Pulford, then creative head of Rank’s Downton Advertising, to produce some special brochures for their Italian office. Pulford flew out to Rome and worked alongside Augusto Favalli and his team of artists. When Favalli died in 1969 some of the artists, including Putzu, moved to London to work with Pulford, whose expanding company by then was producing poster art for several major film companies.

Poster design by Eric Pulford (1915 – 2005). Having taken life classes at Leeds College of Art for 5 years Pulford was apprenticed as a commercial artist in 1931 to Gilchrist Bros a process house of 24 staff. Leslie Whitchurch, a partner in a Leicester based agency and also a part-time publicity manager for Rank, became aware of Pulford’s work and asked him to do some freelance work for him. Then in 1943 Rank invited Pulford to start a publicity department for them in London resulting in posters for “Henry V”, “Odd Man Out” and “Oliver Twist”. When the head of Downtons advertising agency, Charles Collins, died, Pulford was asked to take over. He became chairman and managing director but still spent most of his time designing posters. He retired in 1986. Pulford is responsible, either through his own artwork or design, for several hundred posters, some for classic films such as the ones already mentioned plus “Edge of the World”, “The Importance of Beuing Earnest”, “Genevieve”, “Reach for the Sky” and “A Night to Remember”. He is, without doubt, the most important force in British film poster design from the mid-1940s to the early 1980s.

The poster is in good to very good folded condition with 2 tears at the top edge, an extra vertical fold at the top and right.