An Empire Tea Plantation

Empire Marketing Board, 1926 - 1933



An Empire Tea Plantation

Empire Marketing Board 1926 - 1933

Summary

Landscape framed by black leafy border. Snow covered mountains in the distance against pink sky. Wooded foothills in foreground. Plantation buildings and crop fields seen from above in bottom right corner. An Indian tea plantation with the Himalayan mountain range in the background This poster is the central image, the third of the series of five Empire Marketing Board posters on the theme of 'Drink Empire Grown Tea' (the series title). The other four works in the collection from this series are Empire Tea 1935.609; Picking Empire Grown tea 1935.638; Drinking Empire Grown Tea 1935 637; Empire Tea 1935.607 and the top caption 1935.629. It is one of 222 Empire Marketing Board posters gifted to the Industrial Art Collection at Manchester Art Gallery by the Empire Marketing Board (EMB) in 1935. The EMB was established in May 1926 by the Conservative party politician Colonial Secretary Leo Amery. It was a key response to growing concern about the long-term prospects of the British economy. A distinctive feature of the EMB's work was its poster campaigns which were displayed in specially designed frames located outdoors in towns and cities throughout the UK. Five posters were shown in sequence conceived as a single linked concept. Each series was accompanied by a top caption. Up to 1931, each display was changed every three weeks. Rather than connect tariff protection in Britain with imperial preference agreements between Britain and the Empire countries, as the British support for free trade was so strong, the British governement chose to spend £1 million each year on promoting the sale of British and Empire goods instead. Its poster campaigns were established to promote trade within the British Empire by persuading British customers to 'Buy Empire'. Such sales would support the Empire countries who would in turn purchase British exports of manufactured goods. The EMB posters represented the Empire as a co-operative effort. The committee of the EMB was made up of William Crawford of Crawfords, a major British advertising agency; Frank Pick who closely supervised all aspects of the poster campaigns and Stephen Tallent, Secretary of the EMB. They selected and commissioned leading artists of the period with a track record of good commercial design to ensure the posters achieved the greatest public impact. Artists initially provided the EMB's Publicity Sub Committee with sketches of their proposed designs responding to Pick's design briefs. These original designs were then transferred to zinc plates and printed by specialist lithography printers, primarily by Waterlow and Sons Ltd. The printing proofs were then approved by the committee and finally around 2000 copies of each poster design was produced. The images were constructed and presented with the clear purpose to change the consumer behaviour of the viewer. The Empire Marketing Board ended in 1932 when the decision was made to replace marketing the Empire with imperial preference agreements at the Imperial Economic Conference in Ottawa.


Object Name

An Empire Tea Plantation

Creators Name

Empire Marketing Board

Dimensions

support: 102 x 152.5

accession number

1935.608

Place of creation

United Kingdom

Support

paper

Medium

Lithograph

On Display

[G19] Manchester Art Gallery - Gallery 19 (Design Gallery)
View all

Credit

Gift of the Empire Marketing Board, 1935


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