Caught in the Rain ; or how 'Velan' was discovered : [Marjorie Hayward] : ills. Feliks Topolski : Imperical Chemical Industries Ltd. : London : [1937] : printed at the Curwen Press : frontispiece and title page

Imperial Chemical Industries - the then great ICI - was the UK's largest chemical concern and it employed high standards of publicity and advertiisng for many years. This delightful book was issued in 1937 to promote the development of a new waterproofing agent 'Velan' which was launched with an exhibition at London's Dorland House. It tells the story of Hilary Hexagon (Hexagon House was interestingly the home of ICI's ex-British Dyestuffs Corporation laboratories in Blackley, Manchester, and where Velan was developed) and her quest in London to remain waterproof with the assisance of an already waterproofed duck.

 

The uncredited text was written by Marjorie Hayward, a press officer at ICI, and the illustrations are by the marvellous Polish born Feliks Topolski who had arrived in the UK in 1935. I've long admired his work and this is a wonderful example of his loose drawing or sketch style. The book is beautifully printed by the Plaistow, London, based Curwen Press; interesting as ICI themselves owned a superb in-house printing outfit, the Kynoch Press in Birmingham. ICI did use Curwen on occasion, possibly when Kynoch were busy?

 

It's a wet day in London for one top-hatted gent whilst Hilary Hexagon, with the duck in tow, strides out between showers and sunshine.

Done