Beschreibung:

Margaret Clarke RHA (1888-1961) The Irish Farm Oil on board, 93 x 145cm (36½ x 57'') Signed Provenance: The original artwork for the Empire Marketing Board 1930 Irish Free State Butter poster. A young woman in a grey coat feeds farmyard animals in the grounds of a prosperous looking farmhouse set against distant fields. This large painting is broadly painted and visible in parts through the paint is a grid of regularly spaced intersected pencil lines common in the squaring up system of transferring a design. The Irish Farm is Margaret Clarkes original artwork for one of five advertising posters she was commissioned to design by the Empire Marketing Board (EMB). Established by the British government, the EMB (1926-33) promoted the sale of empire goods within the British marketplace and encouraged closer imperial economic relations. Its Publicity Committee oversaw the EMBs advertising and media operations, including a major nationwide poster campaign. The EMB commissioned approximately one hundred poster series, each featuring five different posters promoting a linked theme. The artist-designed posters were intended to encourage the British public to buy empire products, including those of the recently formed Irish Free State, in the hope of increased reciprocal overseas purchasing of British goods. By in large the EMB commissioned British artists and designers to produce the artwork for the posters rather than native artists from the dominions of the empire. Clarke was one of only three Irish artists to produce Irish Free State posters for the EMB, the others being Seán Keating and James Humbert Craig The sub-committee charged with overseeing poster commission, design and printing awarded her the commission in October 1929 following a review of examples of her work. They commissioned designs for five posters, three 60 inch by 40 inch posters and two 25 inch by 40 inch posters, as part of the EMBs Industrial Series. This series featured the work of seven artists with each poster set displayed under the collective title Empire buying makes busy factories. Surviving correspondence between Clarke, the EMB and J.W. Dulanty, Irish Trade Commissioner and Irish representative on the Board, reveal complex discussions regarding the subject matter for the posters (1). Against a backdrop of sensitive post-independence Anglo-Irish relations, wider colonial issues, and the Irish Free States commitment to an ideology of rural self-identity Clarke had to balance the EMBs agenda along with securing approval from relevant Irish government departments. The Irish Farm is Clarkes only extant full-scale original artwork for one of her posters known to date (2). It served as the model for the commercial lithographic printers to produce the Irish Free State Butter poster. The EMB demanded a high quality in the printing of the poster designs and surviving examples of the corresponding poster show a faithful reproduction of this painting by the firm Waterlow and Sons Ltd, including the hens different feather patterns and colour-markings of the cattle. Intended to highlight Irish products imported into the British marketplace, the poster was captioned In 1929 imports of butter from the Irish Free State amounted to 566,000 cwts. Another of Clarkes posters, captioned Irish Free State butter, eggs and bacon for our breakfasts, depicted the Irish farm products being enjoyed by a family at breakfast. Taken as a whole Clarkes five posters illustrated the reciprocity of trade between the Irish Free State and Britain, and in keeping with that message two further posters promoted the British coal industry and its exports to the Irish Free State, while a central poster with a map of Ireland and Britain boldly reinforced the theme of mutual benefit with a caption Every time you buy empire produce you help the empire buy from us. Clarkes posters were displayed around Britain in September 1930 in the EMBs specially designed wooden-framed hoardings. The survival of