A Niger fisherman

Gerald Spencer Pryse 1881 - 1956

Summary

Two men are shown in a canoe type fishing boat (a Dug-out). One is seated, the other is standing to cast a net. The view is of a wide river with hills in the background. The orange hoizon is suggestive of dawn or dusk. A dug-out, a tree trunk roughly hewn, was the sole means of transport throughout large areas of Southern Nigeria. This poster is one of a series of five posters on the theme of Nigerian trade (series title unknown). The only other work in the collection from this series is 'Nigeria's exports - gathering fruit palm' 1935.665 (so the series is incomplete). 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 government 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 committee with sketches of their proposed designs responding to Pick's design briefs. Pryse's initial designs worked up from drawings made during a tour of West Africa were criticised and amended. The original designs were then transferred to zinc plates and printed by specialist lithography printers. 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. From 21 May to 12 July 1930 Manchester Art Gallery held an exhibition of paintings by Gerald Spencer Pryse. It consisted of one hundred sketches made over fifty-three working days whilst Pryse travelled in the former Colonies of the British Empire and included his original sketches for the EMB posters. The Foreword of the exhibition catalogue was by the late Sir Lawrence Weaver (1876-1930) who organised the British Empire Exhibition held at Wembley Park in London1924-25 for which he received his knighthood. It reads "Amongst the diverse purposes of the Empire Marketing Board is to create in the public mind a convincing picture of Imperial realities in every corner of the world. For the first time in the history of English Government, art of significance and high quality has been harnessed in a service of vision. When the Board set out to make real to people at home the vast area and richness of two colonies which are to the crowd mere geographical names - The Gold Coast and Nigeria - they sought the aid of Mr. Spencer Pryse. In a hundred days (a Napoleonic pilgrimmage) he travelled great distances through primeval forests, setting down with brilliant brush, in conditions often of extreme difficulty, records of a native life of strange and vivid interest and beauty. At one time the desert wind dried his brush before the water colour could reach the paper; at another, the excited interest of the natives was ordered only by a bodyguard of spearmen; at another, Mr. Spencer Pryse had no onlookers save a circle of baboons. All this meant a summary note in the treatment which emerged in a nearness to life altogether valuable. But, more: the rich variety of native life is disappearing before the march of European civilisation, and Mr. Spencer Pryse's records of today will be the history of tomorrow. Coming generations will look at them as we look at El Greco's 'Burial of Count Orgaz' or a country scene by George Morland, persuaded by beauty to an appreciation of social history. The keen interest these pictures have aroused in Canada, in Copenhagen, at the Imperial Institute and at the Alpine Gallery, has led to a movement for purchasing them, so that they may become the nucleus of Fine Art Collections in the two Colonies depicted. It is just to say of Mr. Spencer Pryce's notable achievement that it reveals an art truly Imperial".