Roger Hall (26 December 1914 – 9 December 2006) was a British artist who began his career painting publicity images for front of house displays in cinemas but later became a noted book illustrator and created the first depiction of James Bond on a book cover.
Islington
Islington ( ) is an inner-city area of north London, England, within the wider London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's #Islington High Street, High Street to Highbury Fields ...
. His father was a stoker at Wimbledon Power Station.Branaghan, Sim & Steve Chibnall (Editor) (2006) ''British film posters: An illustrated history''. London:
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
. pp. 62-63, 175, 178.
Early career
Hall began his career aged 15 painting
front of house
In the performing arts, the front of house (FOH) is the part of a performance venue that is open to the public. In theatres and live music venues, it consists of the auditorium, and foyers, as opposed to the front stage and backstage areas. ...
displays for cinemas for the London Art Service. He progressed quickly and was eventually able to paint up to 20 portrait panels per week. By this time he felt he was due a pay rise but after the firm prevaricated, he moved to Art Display Services in Shaftesbury Avenue who produced hand-painted cut-out cinema foyer displays. In 1933, he created a 20 foot high portrait of the actor
Charles Bickford
Charles Ambrose Bickford (January 1, 1891 – November 9, 1967) was an American actor known for supporting roles. He was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for '' The Song of Bernadette'' (1943), '' The Fa ...
made up of 12 plywood panels for display at the top of a cinema in
Marble Arch
The Marble Arch is a 19th-century white marble-faced triumphal arch in London, England. The structure was designed by John Nash in 1827 as the state entrance to the cour d'honneur of Buckingham Palace; it stood near the site of what is today th ...
.
Military service
His career was interrupted when in 1941 he was called up to the British Army during the Second World War. He was demobbed in 1946.
's Pulford Publicity where he started on £16 per week, a high salary then for a poster artist. Pulford, who Hall regarded as an excellent artist, had a background in printing and asked Hall to teach him new techniques such as painting in oils, which he did. He was based in Potters Bar from 1951. He stayed with Pulford Publicity until 1953 when he left after growing frustrated with Pulford's monopolisation of the design process. While there he produced up to three posters per week, and 200-300 in all, including his first
quad poster
QUaD, an acronym for QUEST at DASI, was a ground-based cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization experiment at the South Pole. QUEST (Q and U Extragalactic Sub-mm Telescope) was the original name attributed to the bolometer detector instrume ...
for '' Fame is the Spur'' featuring a large portrait of the star,
Michael Redgrave
Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave (20 March 1908 – 21 March 1985) was an English actor and filmmaker. Beginning his career in theatre, he first appeared in the West End in 1937. He made his film debut in Alfred Hitchcock's ''The Lady Vanishes'' ...
.
Book illustration
After leaving Pulford Publicity, Hall began a career in book illustration, working first for Hutchinson producing hardback covers and later producing covers and illustrations for
Ladybird Books
Ladybird Books are a London-based publishing company, trading as a stand-alone imprint within the Penguin Group of companies. The Ladybird imprint publishes mass-market children's books.
It is an imprint of Penguin Random House, a subsidiary o ...
and many notable post-war British paperback publishers such as Pan,
Arrow
An arrow is a fin-stabilized projectile launched by a bow. A typical arrow usually consists of a long, stiff, straight shaft with a weighty (and usually sharp and pointed) arrowhead attached to the front end, multiple fin-like stabilizers c ...
,
Corgi
The Welsh Corgi ( or Corgi, plural Corgis, or occasionally the etymologically consistent Corgwn; ) is a small Dog type, type of herding dog that originated in Wales. The name ''corgi'' is thought to be derived from the Welsh language, Welsh w ...
, and
Mills & Boon
Mills & Boon is a romance imprint of British publisher Harlequin UK Ltd. It was founded in 1908 by Gerald Rusgrove Mills and Charles Boon as a general publisher. The company moved towards escapist fiction for women in the 1930s. In 1971, the ...
. His work was in a variety of styles from pulp thrillers to illustrations for children's books. For Ladybird he produced illustrations for ''Cooking with Mother'' and ''The Story of our Canals'', along with 14 books in the "Famous People" series. He painted internal illustrations for the ''
Hardy Boys
The Hardy Boys, brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional characters who appear in a series of mystery novels for young readers. The series revolves around teenage amateur sleuths, solving cases that often stumped their adult counterparts. ...
'' mysteries.
In 1955, he painted the cover for the Pan paperback edition of
Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming (28 May 1908 – 12 August 1964) was a British writer, best known for his postwar ''James Bond'' series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., and his ...
James Bond
The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...
paperback and the first depiction of Bond on a book cover.
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is one of the oldest music schools in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the firs ...
Potter's Bar
Potters Bar is a town in Hertfordshire, England,in the historic County of Middlesex Hertsmere Borough Council – Community Strategy First Review (PDF) north of central London. In 2011, it had a population of 21,882.Search to find man in portrait by Ladybird artist. Julia Gregory, ''Barnet & Whetstone Press'', 28 October 2015. Retrieved 3 November 2015. In 1986, he moved to Spain where he held three exhibitions, but returned to England in 2003 where he settled in Gloucestershire and continued to paint. He died in Tetbury on 9 December 2006.