Montague Birrell Black (29 March 1884 – 1964) was a British painter, illustrator and poster artist, producing lithographs for the likes of White Star Line, the London Underground, and the British Railway Lines. Born in

Stockwell Stockwell is a district in south west London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. It is situated south of Charing Cross. Battersea, Brixton, Clapham, South Lambeth, Oval and Kennington all border Stockwell. History The na ...

, London, England, on 29 March 1884, he started his career as "Lithographic Artist" at the age of seventeen, after attending Stockwell College, in London. Between 1910 and 1936, Black created numerous posters along with illustrations of the RMS Titanic and her sister ship RMS Olympic after the delivery of the vessels from the ship yard. He also produced decorative map posters for the

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

and

LNER LNER may refer to: *London and North Eastern Railway, a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1923 until 1947 *London North Eastern Railway, a train operating company in the United Kingdom since 2018 * Liquid neutral earthing resistor, a type ...

. The majority of his illustrations were commissioned and printed by companies such as

The Jarrold Group The Jarrold Group is a Norwich–based company, founded as ''Jarrold & Sons Ltd'', in 1770, by John Jarrold, at Woodbridge, Suffolk, before relocating to Norfolk in 1823. ''The Jarrold Group'' still involves members of the Jarrold family. Fami ...

, ''McCorquodale & Co'', ''Jordison &Co'', ''The Liverpool Printing & Stationary Company''. Around 1910, a number of his paintings were registered at

Stationers Hall The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers (until 1937 the Worshipful Company of Stationers), usually known as the Stationers' Company, is one of the livery companies of the City of London. The Stationers' Company was formed in ...

in London for commercial use, and are now at The National Archives in the UK. In 1912, some of his paintings were exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. In 1926, he painted one of his more renowned works that is currently on display at the

London Transport Museum The London Transport Museum (often abbreviated as the LTM) is a transport museum based in Covent Garden, London. The museum predominantly hosts exhibits relating to the heritage of London's transport, as well as conserving and explaining the h ...

, London, "2026 A.D. - This is all in the Air", which was designed to illustrate a future London where airships were the primary mode of transportation. During World War II, Black was a War Correspondent for the ''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...

'' in Canada, while also producing war illustrations for the front page of '' La Presse''. Some of his work is held at the National Railway Museum and the Library of Congress in the US. His posters, advertisements, paintings regularly come up for sale at auction houses such as

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is ...

, Sotheby's, and Bonhams. Black died in

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

, London in 1964.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Black, Montague Birrell 1884 births 1964 deaths 20th-century English painters English watercolourists British landscape artists