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George Taylor (artist)

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George Taylor
Born1914
DiedJanuary 1996 (aged 81–82)
NationalityEnglish
OccupationCommercial artist
Known forPub signs

George Taylor (1914–1996) [1] was an English artist. He has prominence for his functional pub signs in a distinct hybrid modern-meets-traditional style.

Taylor trained as a signwriter in Birmingham.[2] In the 1930s he worked for a signwriting company in his native town Bromsgrove, where his commissions included designing film posters for the Rank Organisation.[1]

From 1941 to 1945, during World War II, he was sent to Cairo to work as a camouflage artist (painter).[1][3]

After the war, until his retirement in 1976, he was director of a silk-screen printing company in Surrey[clarification needed].[1] He and his wife Sylvia then moved to Yorkshire[clarification needed] and he painted over 100 pub signs for these businesses across that region.[1] In 1984 his family moved to Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk in which area he continued work for his most frequent client,[1] the Greene King Brewery who are based there — he created more than 250 signs for Greene King pubs.[2] He was main sign artist for a period for the Wem Brewing Company based in the market town of Wem in Shropshire.[3] He died in January 1996.[1]

In 2008, his widow[2] presented Greene King with a collection of his miniature, proof, pub sign designs,[2] painted for the approval of clients before being copied as full-sized designs.[3] They were put on exhibition in the brewhouse in his new hometown.[2] In December 2011, she displayed some of his miniatures on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow programme.[3]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Antiques Roadshow to feature Bromsgrove artist". Bromsgrove Advertiser. 8 December 2011.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Pub signs of the times on show". Bury Free Press. 11 August 2008. Retrieved 6 June 2013.
  3. ^ a b c d "Layer Marney Tower 2". Antiques Roadshow. Series 34. Episode 13. 11 December 2011. BBC Television. Retrieved 27 May 2013.