The following transcription appears to be a speech written by Wilfred Vincent Brooks, one of the sons of F.V. Brooks who headed up Vincent Brooks Day & Son in the 20th century. The occasion is unknown as yet but may be a meeting regarding an exhibition attended by the bookbinder Douglas Cockerell of whom the piece is entitled and subsequently amended.
[Mr Douglas Cockerell]
Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen
I suppose that I shall not be far wrong if I assume at the outset that we are all, including the many colour printing firms that I see around me, out for something, if that something is very lofty we call it an ideal; and if I am bold enough to go further and ask what am I out for, some of you will say “We are out to make money”. Quite so, “We are gathering blackberries and we do not find them as thick as blackberries in summer time” I can quite imagine it, or the “Nimble Ninepence has some importance from our point of view”. Undoubtedly. But let me ask you not to make these things your ideal, these are things within your grasp and man’s reach should exceed his grasp or what’s a Heaven for.
The ideal should be perfection in the craft to which we belong and perhaps your first aim to give satisfaction at an economic but not at self-ruinous rate to every one who entrusts you with his commission.
The Nimble-Ninepence will come along in due course and perhaps will be all the sweeter because it is not the product of “Direct Action” and other assets will be added thereto such as Reputation and Connection which people endowed with the ingenuity of those who devised our financial pitfall will not be able to take away from you or these may be super-added as in my own case a whole sheath-full of business friendships which if I were a Duke and thank God I am not, I should value “higher than my Dukedom”.
Now when I was last at the Derby I heard a bookmaker who had exhibited some aptitude for patter exclaim “Come let us cut the cackle and come to the “horses” and I am inclined to follow his example and the “horses” in this case being the various methods of Colour Printing.
I want you all to understand that this is not a one man show such as a lecture but a conference and that being a bit of a senior among you some misguided person has suggested that I should be selected to give you what is known in some aristocratic circles as a “friendly lead”. Beyond this it is essential to point out that I am in no way qualified to speak except as a lithographer who to a certain extent has laid photography captive for the betterment of his Craftsmanship, for the increase of his output and for the modification of his costs.
Now if you ask me how lithography is getting on I shall probably descend to the vernacular and reply “pretty well thank you and how’s yourself”, for lithographers have indeed to be thankful for – first and foremost there is the incoming and the oncoming of the offset process, which a rather jealous 3-colour printing friend of mine described not so long ago as the glorified Rubber Stamp process. But Rubber Stamp process or not, Offset lithography has come to stay and it has enabled us to immensely improve the quality of our work and to use stock giving it much greater artistic value.
The fact that so large a share of this work is subject matter for Rotary methods has caused us to say that zinc and aluminium are not simply alternatives to stone but sister processes demanding a technique and chemistry entirely their own and this valuable guidance has been gained. But beyond and overshadowing all this, artists of eminence have come to realise that they have a duty of a really National nature to take a lead in the guidance of our Craft and to design posters and other things suitable for lithographic reproduction and very often to the lithographic work themselves under the guidance of some non-too-jealous-craftsman.
Many of you will recollect how slow was the progress made with what we now call “Process” till a far-seeing group of men including Bernard Partridge and Greiffenhagen who are still with us took the matter in hand and drew things in a way suitable for the newer method.
As many of my London colleagues are probably aware I am a member of the Senefelder Club – an important group founded by Whistler, Pennell and others for the furtherance of the use of lithography as the means of direct expression among artists, and of this club I am supposed to be technical advisor in succession to the late J.R. Way, the results have been truly remarkable, and the diligent searcher will find examples of this on the walls of the present Exhibition where works by Charles Shannon, Brangwyn, Spencer Price, Shepperson and others are to be seen.
It appears to me to be a matter of first importance that each colour printer undertake only such work as is suited to his plant and I look forward to the time when each lithographer will link himself up with a three-colour printer and a Collotype worker for the interchange of unsuitable work, or even for the complete transfer of the same. I may say that I have had interesting examples of the latter course, but it demands complete loyalty and fairness between the principals which cannot always be impressed on their subordinates so that I fear that the time for general application of the principle is “Not yet”.
I should like to say a few words of a more general character in regard to the share that Colour-Printing is likely to take, in the largely increasing propaganda work of the future, and that is whenever an opportunity is given to a firm to participate in such a movement, that they should go bald-headed for the highest possible art assistance at the very beginning. Imagine that a man comes to you who is prepared to spend a couple of thousand pounds in printing posters or other forms of distribution. You may, by advising the employment of a real artist who will work under some control, double the “punch” produced by the expenditure incurred and thus secure a hold upon a discriminating purchaser not to be measured in terms of pounds, shillings and pence.
There is one other matter to which I attach considerable importance and I will now proceed to deal with it. I have already used the term “Propaganda work” and a large proportion of our future work as printers will be of this description, this has produced a new type of worker in our field who I am inclined to describe as the “Publicity Man” to distinguish him from the mere advertising agent of the past who then as now keeps a shop for the receipt of trade advertisements. These men form a highly educated class of their own – have come to stay and I hope that there are some in the room as I feel that they are a distinct influence for good, but I should like at an early date to arrange a conference between them and the printers on the question of joint-imprints; for the cooperation between Consumer – Publicity Man – and Printer should be quite fair square and above-board and neither of the partners should lose his due recognition when a good piece of work is turned out.
My printing friends must not be jealous of their new partners, especially if he comes into line with them on the question of imprint, but he will never be expected to bring in assets of his own such as knowledge of “Publicity” with its two attributes “Punch” and “Push” – regard for the Times and Seasons of Action and the special “Locus in quo” in each case. Should there be such gentlemen present I am sure that printers will welcome a few words from them as I am sure that a hearty cooperation between the two classes may be of great use to both and a great assistance to Industrial Art we practise and which may go far to make our streets and Railway Stations and ephemeral literature generally more beautiful than they have been yet, not-withstanding much that has been done.
Now in conclusion I feel that we colour printers may be in “Merry Sin” as Johnny Gilpin was, and we have a vast future before us. Of course we have the ever present labour trouble with us still, but Britishers who have overcome so many things including the turning back of the on-coming German hordes of 1914/15 are not likely to be overcome by this purely domestic difficulty and with mutual goodwill, a way out will surely be found – with so many jarring sounds around us and on the Continent of Europe we have no use of a Jazz Band.
146 Fleet Street
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