Style Imitating Art | “Summer sales quickly reached by Underground” by Mary Koop

About Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, and Marsha of Marsha in the Middle. Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday, one of the hosts, acting as presenter, selects an inspiration image that they will each post on their blogs. The following Monday, each host shares her art inspired outfit. Participants are invited to submit their art inspired outfits to the presenter by 10:00 p.m. EST on the Tuesday following the hosts’ art inspired outfit posts. The following day, Wednesday, the presenter will share all of the submissions on her blog.

You don’t have to be a blogger to join either! In fact, you don’t even have to join but you can still use the art to inspire an outfit just for the sake of trying something different. If you want to share your inspired outfit, we invite you do so on Instagram or any other social media platform that you prefer. Just be sure to tag Salazar, Shelbee, or Marsha or use #TeamLOTSStyle and #StyleImitatingArt so the hosts know you have joined. Go have some fun in your closets and join the SIA challenge next week!

This Week’s Presenter

Salazar chose this week’s artwork “because summer (along with summer rain and summer sales) is here, and the vibrant umbrellas are a perfect source of inspiration for summer looks.”

The Artwork

“Summer sales quickly reached by Underground” by Mary Koop

About the Artist: Mary Koop

There isn’t much information available about the artist who designed this vibrant poster. If I purchase a subscription or two for art history websites, I might be able to gain access to certain artist biographies, including that of Mary Koop, but I am not willing to pay for such subscriptions. So all I can find and share is that Mary Koop was born Mary Bredall in the Camberwell area of London, England, in 1884. She attended the Croydon School of Art and also studied under Frank Brangwyn and J.M. Swain at the London School of Art.

Marsha was able to find a bit more on Ancestry.com (I don’t have a subscription to that either) including Mary Koop’s birth date of June 20, 1884, and her marriage year of 1915. Mary Koop died in 1967 at the age of 83 having had her artwork exhibited three times at The Royal Academy. Unfortunately, that is all I know about this very talented and seemingly quite colorful woman!

About the Art: “Summer sales quickly reached by Underground”

The Underground Electric Railway Company was a privately owned rail company that served the greater London area in the early 1900s. The company’s financial survival depended on the growing urbanization of the area. In order to get people to travel by rail, the London Underground began selling advertisements to local attractions which led to their commissioning of various artists to create posters for display all throughout the railway system.

A lawyer by training and an enthusiast for promoting the benefits of mass transit, Frank Pick was chosen to lead the in-house advertising campaign to get the public to travel by railway. Having an interest in emerging artists of all genders, Pick went about commissioning up and coming artists who had an interest in modernist painting to create posters with unambivalent messages such as “Go to the zoo!” or, in this case, “Go summer sale shopping!”

In 1925, forty-one year old artist Mary Koop was commissioned to create a poster that promoted the summer sales season in London’s shopping district. To fulfill her commission, Koop created this poster which is a color lithograph on cream woven paper measuring 102 × 63 cm (40 3/16 × 24 13/16 in.). The original artwork was gifted to the Art Institute of Chicago by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London Limited. It is currently off view in the museum.

“In 20th-century England, store markdowns happened just twice a year, in the winter after the holidays and in the summer. This poster promotes the Underground as a rapid—and dry—mode of transit to this exciting biannual event. A stream of gaily colored umbrellas, with few solid black ones (the color commonly used by men) in sight, is funneled toward the train to reach shopping destinations. Is the black-and-white umbrella with a design reminiscent of a spider’s web at the very front of the poster an allusion to the snares of consumerism?”

The Art Institute of Chicago

Resources/References:

• London Transport Museum: Poster; Summer sales quickly reached, by Mary Koop, 1925
• Artist Biographies: KOOP Mary 1884-1967
• The Art of Advertising: A Review of “Everyone’s Art Gallery: Posters of the London Underground”
• Art Institute of Chicago: Summer Sales Quickly Reached

“This poster was commissioned by the Underground Electric Railway Company to promote travel to the summer sales of 1925. Mary Koop’s vibrant design depicts a sea of brightly coloured umbrellas moving towards the entrance of a shop. The tall shop doorway mimics the form of a tunnel or bridge. As the assorted umbrellas pass underneath, they are closed until the journey home. The umbrella was used in numerous London Underground posters, particularly in the 1920s. Its pleasing symmetry lent itself perfectly to the bold geometric style of the time. It also presented an apt metaphor for the Underground as a refuge from the English climate. Koop’s flamboyant umbrellas provide an injection of colour and a humorous slant on the unpredictability of the British summer.”

London Transport Museum

About My Outfit

The pale yellow background of the poster led me to this pale yellow tie dye dress that I thrifted a few years back. My eyes were most drawn to the black and white spider web looking umbrella at the very bottom of the poster. That umbrella inspired me to choose this black and white striped kimono robe.

Once I had these two garments together, I definitely needed to inject lots of other colors and patterns to reflect the chaotic color and pattern burst that is created by the abundance of umbrellas. So I added a colorful thrifted belt, my sunflower hat, and my April Cornell fabric beaded necklace layered with a preloved multicolored seed bead necklace and earrings. The red umbrellas also really stood out to me so I wore my red cowgirl boots as a nod to them.

This outfit would not be complete, however, without my crazy parasol. In fact, I probably could have worn any old outfit because this sunbrella captures the poster art perfectly all by itself. This outfit was also great for the hot and humid weekend. I wore it all day on Saturday and will probably wear it again sometime this week.

How did I do? Does this outfit adequately represent the poster art?

Be sure to check out Salazar’s interpretation of the artwork as well as Marsha’s take on it. If you would like to participate in this challenge and have your photo included in Salazar’s round up post on Wednesday, June 5, 2024, be sure to email your photos to her by Tuesday, June 4, 2024, by 10:00 p.m. EST. I am excited to see what you all style!

Keeping it on the edge,

Shelbee

Joining with these Fabulous Link Parties.