LIMITED EDITION Wartime PENGUIN PRINT of Winston Churchill SIGNED by Felix Topolski

Description

Polish expatriate artist Feliks Topolski created a series of four prints for Penguin Books that were issued in 1940 and 1941, priced at sixpence, with the aim of “supporting the morale of the nation.” This was the first, a fierce image of the indomitable new Prime Minister, published in June 1940. Reproduced, in Topolski’s holographic hand, is the very recently uttered Churchill quotation: “…we shall fight on the seas and oceans…we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, in the fields, in the streets and in the hills. We shall never surrender.”

This print is also signed and dated in ink by the artist in the right corner of the image: “1.7.1950. Feliks Topolski,” along with a Topolski inscription about “Churchill” that we cannot decipher. The colophon, printed beneath the image, reads: Drawn by Feliks Topolski, lithographed by W.S. Cowell, Ltd. of Ipswich, and published by Penguin Books, Ltd. of Harmondsworth. Penguin Print No. 1, of which 25,000 copies have been lithographed and the plates destroyed.”

The print is colored blue, pink and black. The paper size is 11 x 16 inches. The paper has browned considerably, with water damage, creases and long, closed tears, but it is intact and quite dramatic in its semi-ruined state; matted and expressively framed (18 x 22 inches).

FELIKS TOPOLSKI (1907-1989) emigrated from Poland to London in 1935 and later became an official war artist for His Majesty’s government. His work was greatly admired by George Bernard Shaw, who said that Topolski was “the greatest impressionist in black and white.”