Dennis Bailey (Modernist Graphic Design in Britain 1945–1980)

Modernist Graphic Design in Britain 1945–1980
Ian McLaren and Tony Pritchard

‘Modernist Graphic Design in Britain 1945–1980’ was first published in hardback during 2024. As it sold out quickly the authors wish to broaden the readership in the education sector. In a series for Design Reviewed in collaboration with The Modernist Society, we will publish profiles of a number of lesser-known graphic designers featured in the book who helped shape Modernist graphic design in Britain during the post-war period. Coinciding with a second printing of the book in softback the series begins with an exploration of the work of a designer who embraced continental European Modernist design and helped develop the themes which make Modernism in Britain distinctive.

Dennis Bailey

Dennis was born on the South coast of England; and brought up in Worthing. He refers to being intrigued by amongst other things watching local signwriters.¹ Before the advent of decals and laser cutting, signwriters used the brush. So one can well imagine that Dennis’s typographic sensitivity was informed from an early age by watching this essentially craft based skill. His parents were ‘not hostile’ to Dennis’s early interest in the visual arts and he attended Worthing School of Art. From Worthing Dennis graduated to the Royal College of Art during 1950, where he spent his first year in the Painting School, as did all of his colleagues at the time. There he was taught by John Minton, of whom he says “He was a very good tutor. He told me a lot of home truths. I started with the idea that I was the incarnation of Cézanne, but he soon brought me back down to earth! He was one of those rare people who can criticise constructively. He could instruct and enthuse you at the same time”²

Introduction

Dennis contributed to a widely diverse range of graphic design since the 1960s. When Ian McLaren returned to the UK from Germany and Holland during the very early 1960s he was struck by the elegance and inventiveness of his work. There was little to match it at the time, which has remained the case to this day.

Early experiences

On graduating, Dennis won a travelling painting scholarship, which took him to Sicily during 1954. On returning he produced book-jackets for Jonathan Cape, for which he was paid the typical going rate of £15 each; and illustrated a literary anthology for Ginn & Company. His attitude on graduating was typical of the time. He describes it as “I thought I’d get a job part-time teaching and although I didn’t want to be an artist in a garret I thought it would be something like that. You just knew there was no money to be made from illustration but you liked doing it, so if you got the occasional drawing in the ‘Radio Times’ or ‘Lilliput’ maybe an advertising agency would ask you to do some work occasionally. The College encouraged you to cultivate patrons and the main one was Jack Beddington”.³

Dennis’s experience of working for him was not favourable. Alex Seago provides a vivid account of Dennis’s reaction when required to redraw a project for him. He was told the figures “looked like chaps who’d been picked up for importuning in the lavatories in Piccadilly underground station. I stormed out into Mount Street almost in tears and thought God Almighty, there must be some other way to earn a living! Do I really have to listen to this crappy, patronising, pompous nonsense?”.⁴ At the time Dennis was already teaching part-time at Walthamstow and Croydon schools of art.

Magazine work

Much of his best output has been for magazines. His first experience of working on commercial magazines was while working in Zurich for Walter Herdeg on ‘Graphis’ during 1955.⁵ It was also his earliest experience of Modernist typographic design. He is said to have become interested in typography “because he hated the results when other people added type to his illustrations”.⁶ More than once he has described how he had been inspired by the experience of emerging from the station onto the streets of Zürich, where poster sites served as a gallery of current innovative Swiss graphic design. He was impressed in particular by Josef Müller-Brockmann’s work for cultural events. “I started to get very interested in Swiss typographic design. Müller-Brockmann, Karl Gerstner, and Max Bill…they were the first people in graphics that I had real enthusiasm for”. They were compelling because they were “based on rational structures, it was abstract…it didn’t undermine my personal work and it enabled me to combine art and graphics”.⁷ It is hard to believe Dennis when he says his interest in type was self-taught, while working on Graphis, where Herdeg was not an avowed Modernist.

Goldsmiths Company

On returning to London the architect Alan Irvine introduced Dennis to the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. He went on to produce exemplary work for the Goldsmiths Company from 1960 onwards, the first of which was for the ‘International Exhibition of Modern Jewellery 1890–1961’. They also worked together for various architecturally related clients, which involved Dennis in designing the exhibition graphics as well as the printed materials for a variety of clients. They continued a lifelong collaboration on many exhibitions, including trade exhibition stands for companies such as Pirelli, and Sharp Control Gears Ltd in the 1960s; which also featured Dennis’s illustrations. Later they worked together on major art exhibitions including: ‘International Ceramics’, for the V&A (1972); and an array of exhibitions of similar standing for the RA, including ‘Pompeii AD79’ (1976); ‘The Gold of Eldorado’ (1978); ‘The Horses of San Marco’ (1979); ‘The Cimbaue Crucifix’ (1980); ‘The Great Japan Exhibition’ (1981); and ‘The Treasures of Ancient Nigeria’ (1982).

When Ian first encountered Dennis’s work, he was struck by his ability to produce equally elegant and appropriate solutions for such a varied clientele. He remains impressed by Dennis’s ability to evoke so effectively the diversely different content required by the wide range he produced throughout his working life. While freelancing at this time Dennis became acquainted with Mark Boxer, Brian Duffy and Terence Donovan, whom he was to work with later on ‘Town’ magazine.

Disillusioned with what he called the trendy “tan carpets, Italian glass and Japanese lamps” in vogue at the time, he left for Paris, in part to work with the artist and designer Sandro Bocola on a film about American jazz musicians in Paris. While there he was tempted to work on what he describes as “a short-lived literary journal”. During a brief period Dennis gave ‘Olympia Review’ a refreshingly original appearance, using bold condensed sans-serif headings, with his customary mix of inventively cropped photographs, his simply and delicately executed illustrations, and contrasting these with strictly controlled body-matter.

Swinging London and Town magazine

Persuaded by stories of “swinging London”, and learning that ‘Town’ magazine was seeking an art editor, he returned and was offered the rôle by Michael Heseltine’s partner Clive Labovitch. The magazine had been art edited by Tom Wolsey, who was German born. Possibly because of this he was influenced by the trend-setting German magazine ‘Twen’, which Dennis described as “the only magazine that had really well-set type”.⁸ ‘Town’ made a splash, due as much to Dennis’s energetic design as its editorial content. Sometimes his own photographs and illustrations were featured. Writing in 2007, Dennis described how he enjoyed the working environment at ‘Town’. The results were a vibrant mix of commissioned photoshoots in unlikely locations, his own and others’ illustrations, and inventive collage.⁹  The magazine was typified by its direct but elegant covers; and inventive editorial spreads using young photographers such as Brian Duffy, Terence Donovan and Don McCullin. Despite attracting much attention it did not survive beyond 1967 when the ‘Sunday Times’ colour supplement started publication.

Dennis went on to work on a number of other magazines, These included the ‘AA Files’ for the Architectural Association (1982–2006); an annual survey for the Economist Group ‘The World in 1987’ starting in 1987 until 2015; and a variety of publications and magazine restyles for them. He worked also on the ‘RSA Journal’ for the Royal Society of Arts (1988); the ‘New Statesman’ (1996); and the ‘BMJ’ (1988–2005); as well as covers for ‘The Listener’. During 1987 he joined forces with the former Art Director at the ‘The Economist’, Mike Kenny to form Bailey & Kenny, working jointly with Dennis’s wife Nicola.

Later work

His later work included the design of numerous books and exhibition catalogues (many with related exhibition graphics and posters). They are all a delight. Other clients included the British Council in Iran; ‘British Cultural Festival’ (1977); for Phaidon – ‘Bonnard’ and ‘20th Century Composers’ (unrealised); for Merrell – ‘Francis Bacon’s Studio’ (2005), ‘Performing Architecture’ (2006), ‘Zaida Ben-Yusuf’ (2007) and ‘Sir John Soanes Museum, London’ (2009). For the Danish publisher Informations Forlag –‘Christiania’ (1979); for the Arts Council – ‘Le Corbusier’ (1987); and for Black Dog – ‘Trevor Dannatt: Works and Words’ (2008). His many catalogue designs include for the Royal Academy – ‘Pompeii AD79’ (1977); for the Arts Council – ‘Dada & Surrealism Reviewed’ (1978) and ‘Picasso’s Picassos’ (among many others). For the RIBA – ‘Carlo Scarpa’ (1973) and ‘Eileen Gray’ (1974); and for the Centre technique de cooperation agricole et rurale – ‘Terres et Vivres’ (1989); as well as several catalogues for the Anthony d’Offray Gallery including ‘Gerhard Richter: Mirrors’ (1991). In addition he designed annual reports for a number of major companies such as Consolidated Goldfields and London Merchant Securities. Those for NM Rothchild produced during 1991 and 1992 must have been amongst his most demanding typographic assignments, which did not prevent him from producing typically elegant results.

A natural draughtsman

Dennis was equally gifted as a natural draughtsman. Len Deighton, who was a student with him at the RCA, says “Dennis Bailey and Lewin Bassingthwaite were outstanding artists setting a standard of sensitive draftsmanship (sic) which I knew I would never equal”.¹⁰ It is hard therefore to believe Dennis’s claim that the only entire book he has illustrated was in 1954, the literary anthology for schools published by Ginn and Company, ‘Read to Write’. Of this he said it “was done well before I tried my hand at graphics”.¹¹ A number of his illustrations have been included in book jacket commissions, notably with Derek Birdsall for the Penguin Education series. His fluid and natural illustrations have appeared numerous times on covers for ‘The Economist’; ‘The Illustrated London News’; ‘The Listener’; other Penguin Books; and Jonathan Cape. He also produced commercial illustrated work for magazines and for other design groups (such as Pentagram) and for companies which included Herman Miller.

Nicola Bailey notes that “At one time in the 1950s Dennis had considered architecture as a career, Hugh Casson even offering to sponsor him. While at Worthing School of Art he had filled notebooks with beautiful drawings of different architectural styles and local buildings. Throughout his career he worked with architects producing visual realisations of their projects though for some reason he never fully appreciated this ability, seeing it more as a means of earning a living. He could take sheets of plans and translate them into real places, often querying some of the architectural decisions where doors, walls and windows did not fit. Examples of this were his drawings of ‘The Globe Theatre’ for Theo Crosby and Sam Wanamaker in the early 80s; a Robert Adam interior relocated to the new Lloyds of London building for Pentagram (1985); and drawings of schemes for Paternoster Square for Arup Associates 1987; among many others”.¹²

Another example of his modest opinion of his abilities can be found in the Penguin Collectors ‘Penguin by Illustrators’ where he writes “Romek Marber, consultant to the stamp printers Harrisons commissioned me to design a set of four postage stamps for the ‘20th International Geographical Congress’. I thought no, this is not for me, I can’t do it. Romek pummelled and persuaded me. I, at one point, was pretty well camping in his studio. They came out well despite my doubts.”¹³

Royal Designer for Industry

In addition to his early teaching experience, between 1971–80 Dennis taught at Chelsea School of Art, when Edward Wright was the head of department. It was during his final year teaching there that the Royal Society of Arts recognised his long-standing contribution to design by awarding him Royal Designer for Industry (RDI). He died during 2016. Asked which of his projects he most enjoyed working on, he cited the catalogue for the exhibitions ‘Le Corbusier, Architect of the Century’ for the Arts Council (with its related poster); and ‘Hard Rain’ by Mark Edwards and Bob Dylan of 2006 (though sadly spreads from these do not reproduce well). His work is characterised by his combination of what appears effortlessly elegant typographic design, and equally fluent draughtsmanship. He was a charming companion and an exceptionally rare talent.

References

1. Meeting with DB 14.1.13
2. See Seago, pp60
3. Ibid, pp71
4. Ibid, pp74
5. While at the RCA he had contributed to the student magazine ARK, numbers 6 and 14. Ibid pp199
6. Nicola Bailey, correspondence, 28.8.18
7. See Seago, pp200
8. Ibid
9. Penguin Collectors Society, 2007
10. Ibid
11. Dennis Bailey, correspondence, 27.3.13
12. Nicola Bailey, correspondence, 28.8.18
13. See Penguin Collectors Society, 2007, pp37

Acknowledgement

The authors wish to thank Nicola Bailey for her generous assistance.

Pre-order Modernist Graphic Design in Britain 1945–1980 here.