Golden Arrow - British Railways (1956)
Year: 1956
Format: Leaflet
Illustrator: Harry Stevens
Client: British Railways
Details: This leaflet was published in 1956 by British Railways, advertising the Golden Arrow service from London to Paris. The Golden Arrow (‘Flèche d’Or’ in French) was a luxury boat train. It connected London with Dover, where passengers travelled to Calais by ferry. They then joined the Flèche d’Or which transported them on to Paris. The artwork is signed ‘Stevens’, which is the signature of Harry Stevens (1919-2008).
Harry Stevens was born in Newton Heath, Manchester, and attended his local school, St. Augustine’s. He worked as a designer with a Manchester publicity firm from the age of 14, living for a number of years in Stretford. He studied privately as a painter during this time and was not formally trained.
From 1939-46 he served as a machine-gunner in the Cheshire Regiment. Upon becoming wounded, he was given a base job at the Office of War information in Algiers, where he produced drawings and paintings. He exhibited these at Gibbs’ Bookshop in Manchester on his return. An article published in the Manchester Evening News (19 Nov 1946) publicised this show, along with Stevens’ talking about how he missed eating couscous in the Casbah with the locals.
Stevens produced commercial art to enable him to produce his own work. He specialised in poster design, creating illustrations for coach companies and British Railways. He was also commissioned by London Transport and the GPO. He won the Council of Industrial Design Poster Award in 1963.
He joined the Society of Industrial Artists and was elected Fellow in 1965. He was also a member of the Society of Modern Painters. Stevens exhibited in Nottingham, Liverpool, London (including the Tate Gallery) and Manchester. Manchester City Art Gallery holds one of his oil painting in their collection, ‘Kite in the Sea’ (1949).
Stevens continued producing commercial artwork throughout the 1970s and later lived in Lyndhurst, Hampshire.