Lithograph on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/james-boswell-787" aria-label="More by James Boswell" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">James Boswell</a>
Parrs Stores
Presented by Ruth Boswell, the artist's widow 2000
actions: postures and motions
adults
advertising
animals: mammals
architecture
bottle
bowl
box
boy
broom
bucket
children
clothing and personal items
coal
dog - non-specific
domestic
fashion
food and drink
heating and lighting
jug
key
lifestyle and culture
man
mannequin
mop
objects
pavement
people
placard
product packaging
reading, writing, printed matter
signage
society
standing
street
sugar
tin can
townscapes / man-made features
toys and models
underwear
urban environment
vegetable - non-specific
vessels and containers
walking
woman
<p>Shop fronts and signage were a recurrent theme in Boswell’s prints. This large image depicts the exterior of J. Parr’s Stores which is crowded with household items for sale including foodstuffs such as Oxo, Sylvan Flakes, Tate and Lyle sugar, Lux soap, and cocoa, clothing and other miscellaneous goods from pots and pans to dyes and cleaning products. The shop keeper stands at the entrance addressing a middle-aged woman who holds an empty canister which she presumably wants re-filling with one of the many types of oil for sale. In the foreground a school boy, wearing shorts and cap, gazes at a dog which looks curiously at the bill-boards outside the store. This print may have been published in the popular periodical <span>Lilliput, </span>of<span> </span>which Boswell was art editor until it ceased publication in 1952. He produced a series of pictures of Camden Town, where he was then living, for this magazine. Eric Hobsbawn remarked that Camden ‘isn’t as flamboyant as Stepney or Shoreditch, or as grim as Canning Town; it is just ordinary. That is why Boswell’s pictures show its people doing nothing specially Camden Townish, but simply the sort of things that are being done in scores of neighbourhoods in Inner London’ (quoted in <span>James Boswell: Extracting the Dream Reality</span>).</p>
paper print lithograph
Parr’s Stores
image: 483 × 410 mm
Presented by Ruth Boswell, the artist's widow 2000
<p>Shop fronts and signage were a recurrent theme in Boswell’s <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>prints</span></a>. This large image depicts the exterior of  J. Parr’s Stores which is crowded with household items for sale including foodstuffs such as Oxo, Sylvan Flakes, Tate and Lyle sugar, Lux soap, and cocoa, clothing and other miscellaneous goods from pots and pans to dyes and cleaning products. The shop keeper stands at the entrance addressing a middle-aged woman who holds an empty canister which she presumably wants re-filling with one of the many types of oil for sale. In the foreground a school boy, wearing shorts and cap, gazes at a dog which looks curiously at the bill-boards outside the store. This print may have been published in the popular periodical <i>Lilliput, </i>of<i> </i>which Boswell was art editor until it ceased publication in 1952. He produced a series of pictures of Camden Town, where he was then living, for this magazine. Eric Hobsbawn remarked that Camden ‘isn’t as flamboyant as Stepney or Shoreditch, or as grim as Canning Town; it is just ordinary. That is why Boswell’s pictures show its people doing nothing specially Camden Townish, but simply the sort of things that are being done in scores of neighbourhoods in Inner London’ (quoted in <i>James Boswell: Extracting the Dream Reality</i>).
<br/>
<br/>Boswell was born in New Zealand but moved to London in 1925 where he remained for the rest of his life. In 1932 he joined the Communist Party and abandoned <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> for politically motivated graphic work. The following year he co-founded  the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/artists-international-association" title="Glossary definition for 'Artists International Association'"><span>Artists International Association</span></a> along with Paul Hogarth (1817-2001) and James Fitton (1899-1982), and began to contribute sketches to left-wing periodicals, <i>The Left Review </i>and the <i>Daily Worker. </i>Many of these prints are political satires, for example <i>Empire Builders </i>(Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/boswell-empire-builders-p01823" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>P01823</span></a>)<i>. Parr’s Stores, </i>however, reveals Boswell’s fascination with street culture and the ordinary lives of the working classes. He was directly influenced by the eighteenth century <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/caricature" title="Glossary definition for 'Caricature'"><span>caricaturists</span></a> George Cruickshank (1792-1878), Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) and James Gillray (1756-1815). Like their satirical illustrations of British society, Boswell’s small plates contain a profusion of details revealing both his ingenuity as a printmaker and his remarkable ability to observe his daily surroundings.
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<br/><b>Further reading:</b>
<br/><i>James Boswell: Extracting the Dream Reality, </i>exhibition catalogue, Austin/Desmond Fine Art London 1999
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<br/>Heather Birchall 
<br/>January 2004
<br/></p>

Summary
2004-10-07T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
actions: postures and motions adults advertising animals: mammals architecture bottle bowl box boy broom bucket children clothing and personal items coal dog - non-specific domestic fashion food and drink heating and lighting jug key lifestyle and culture man mannequin mop objects pavement people placard product packaging reading, writing, printed matter signage society standing street sugar tin can townscapes / man-made features toys and models underwear urban environment vegetable - non-specific vessels and containers walking woman