George Taylor (1914–1996)
was an English artist. He has prominence for his functional
pub signs in a distinct hybrid modern-meets-traditional style.
Taylor trained as a
signwriter in
Birmingham.
In the 1930s he worked for a signwriting company in his native town Bromsgrove, where his commissions included designing film posters for the
Rank Organisation.
From 1941 to 1945, during
World War II, he was sent to
Cairo to work as a
camouflage artist (painter).
After the war, until his retirement in 1976, he was director of a
silk-screen printing
Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mesh ...
company in Surrey.
He and his wife Sylvia then moved to
Yorkshire and he painted over 100 pub signs for these businesses across that region.
In 1984 his family moved to
Bury St Edmunds
Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as Bury, is a historic market town, market, cathedral town and civil parish in Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – ...
in Suffolk in which area he continued work for his most frequent client,
the
Greene King Brewery who are based there — he created more than 250 signs for Greene King pubs.
He was main sign artist for a period for the
Wem Brewing Company based in the market town of
Wem
Wem may refer to:
* HMS ''Wem'' (1919), a minesweeper of the Royal Navy during World War I
*Weem, a village in Perthshire, Scotland
* Wem, a small town in Shropshire, England
*Wem (musician), hip hop musician
WEM may stand for:
* County Westmeath, ...
in
Shropshire.
He died in January 1996.
In 2008, his widow
presented Greene King with a collection of his miniature, proof, pub sign designs,
painted for the approval of clients before being copied as full-sized designs.
They were put on exhibition in the brewhouse in his new hometown.
In December 2011, she displayed some of his miniatures on the BBC's ''
Antiques Roadshow'' programme.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, George
1914 births
1996 deaths
People from Bromsgrove
20th-century English painters
English male painters
British Army personnel of World War II
Artists from Bury St Edmunds
People from Surrey
20th-century English male artists