Raymond Sheppard and ICI Magazine

ICI Magazine February 1951

Recently a copy of an ICI Magazine came up on eBay which led to me being able to get copies/photocopies of some more artwork by Raymond Sheppard and to be able to pin down where and when they appeared. Christine Sheppard's cuttings files of her father's work contained all those below and I have not found any more despite ploughing through a lot of copies.

Wikipedia tells us that:

In the 1920s and 30s, the company [Imperial Chemical Industries - ICI] played a key role in the development of new chemical products, including the dyestuff phthalocyanine (1929), the acrylic plastic Perspex (1932),[4] Dulux paints (1932, co-developed with DuPont), polyethylene (1937), and polyethylene terephthalate fibre known as Terylene (1941). In 1940, ICI started British Nylon Spinners as a joint venture with Courtaulds. 

The "house organ" as the internal works magazines/papers were called in the day,  ICI Magazine ran from January 1928 to August 1939. It then continued in 1947 after the war until 1987 when the name changed to The Roundel which ended in 1993. Why The Roundel? That's explained in the first issue in 1987

 Which brings us to our masthead., The ICI Magazine now is to be called The Roundel. Why? Because this reflects more accurately the image of ICI and therefore its flagship magazine.

The rather well produced magazine shows people in different branches of the company at home and abroad - even one "Mr Sheppard" (no relation as far as I know) having to move his leadership of the China operation to Hong Kong after the Communists took over! There are articles on the history of separate companies that went to make up ICI, there are well-written chemical explanations, as well as cartoons and, as time goes on, articles on employees' hobbies. My primary interest is in the illustrator and their illustrations. It's obvious ICI spent money on this magazine hiring many names of the day as well as using employees' artwork (I'll blog lots of interesting art on my other blog soon)

ICI Magazine September 1947
"Silver birches in Ashdown Forest" by "courtesy of The Times"

The first illustrated by Raymond Sheppard, which I have found, is in September 1947 on pages 210-213. The article, written by "E.F.Wood (Dyestuffs Division Blackley)" is called "Butterflies and Moths". I have reproduced the whole article from a scanned PDF so please forgive the resolution

ICI Magazine September 1947, pp210-211

ICI Magazine September 1947, pp212-213

There's no caption for the first full page in black and white with one colour used for the butterfly in amongst flowers.  But the three other illustrations' captions read: "Found...the caterpillar is stroked by the ant"; "Off to the brood chamber"; "A beautiful blue butterfly crawls through dark passages into a world of sunshine and flowers"

ICI Magazine February 1951
"Seagulls at Polzeath" by Miss E. Atkins

The next of our Raymond Sheppard illustrated features in ICI Magazine February 1951, (pp 61-63) in an article by J. M. Blackwood, who apparently worked in the "Southern Region". He writes lovingly about his hobby of "Bird watching from my window"

ICI Magazine February 1951, p61

ICI Magazine February 1951, p62

ICI Magazine February 1951, p63

The first illustration shows a tit being cjhased by a Nuthatch and then pages 62 and 63 read "There was a Bluetit ...who tried to drive off the other birds"; "The Great tit visited the board next"; "The Nuthatch pickaxed away until he got them all out";  "The only other visitor for a while was the Missel Thrush". Here we can see Sheppard's years of study put to good use - it's very unlikely anyone would find a reference photo of the first illustration! Also his two books on drawing birds first published by The Studio Publications show his skills in construction and execution of bird drawings.

ICI Magazine March 1956
"The Rohtang Pass" by M. J. Hackney

The last example in ICI Magazine of Sheppard's art is in March 1956, so long gaps between assignments perhaps reflecting the publicity department's need to use their budget amongst various contributors - including their employees who contributed. This is the copy I own, bound in a volume, thus the slight cropping on the right hand side!

ICI Magazine March 1956, p.74

"Birds of the Tees Estuary" is written by Charles W. Armstrong, (Billingham Division) and when one realises that the Billingham Division was based in Stockton-on-Tees, this is obviously by a local worker and enthusiast who must have been extremely proud to see Sheppard illustrating his few words!The six birds shown are Cormorant, Curlew, Herring Gull, Dunlin, Oystercatcher, and Mallard

So having read through all of the available online versions and many at the British Library I still haven't seen every issue so there may be more out there of Sheppard's work for the ICI Magazine

I must say a huge thank you and promote the Catalyst Science Discovery Centre (Mersey Road,  Widnes, Cheshire WA8 0DF Telephone 0151 420 1121) and highlight Paul Meara who provided so much information to me which I shall use in a later article on my other blog and Judith (sorry I don't have your surname - get in touch and let me rectify that) who started me on this journey by being so helpful. Judith is a volunteer archivist at Discovery Centre, which she tells me is "The very building where John Brunner and Ludwig Mond (two of ICI founders) first met in the 1860s!" You can also find these lovely people on Facebook and I also learned they are winners of the Chemicals Northwest ‘Charity of the Year Award’ 2016 and as if that's not enough Winner of the Chemical Industries Association ‘Reputation Award’ 2016. Next time I'm up that way, I'll certainly call in and say a personal thank you.