An Interesting Group of Nine 1970s Naïve School Pen & Ink Portrait Pictures

Origin: English
Period: Mid/Late Twentieth Century
Provenance: Unknown
Date: c.1978
Canvas Heights: 4.75 inches
Canvas Widths: 3 inches
The Wholes: 6 X 5.75 inches

The unusual collection of naive school pen and ink drawn portrait pictures of nine males, drawn onto blank postally unused postcards, some with annotation, and mounted in glazed oak frames surviving from the latter part of nineteen seventies Britain.

The pictures are in fair condition. Most are in original order, one has its glass lacking and one has had a bottom section of its frame replaced. Some are more stained than others and the oak frames have some scuffing.

The portraits show a range of gentlemen of differing ages though all appear of British birth, white Caucasian, with each sitter having a good mixture of both facial hair and hairstyles typical of the period. They are dated either ’78 or ’79 and are signed with a monogram. Some of the sitters names to the portraits include ‘J. Otley’, ‘S.W.Allen’, ‘P. Jarvis’, ‘B.N.Powell’, and ‘P Wescott’. One is marked ‘Armory Tavern’ which most certainly refers to the Armory Tavern on Stapleton Road in Bristol. In 1975 the landlady for this public house was Mrs. R. M. Harper
and it is currently closed and for sale, ready for conversion to flats.

It is feasible that this band of merry men, were just that, merry men, friends and comrades who gathered at the local public house to tell bawdy tales and rude jokes and were depicted as such. There’s no real quality here, but masses of folk art charm. How fun.