Myerscough-Walker was among the best architectural draughtsman of the 1930s ‘with his distinct contemporary style: employing fantastic trees, powerfully contrasting and dense colours using bodycolour rather than wash to create emphasis, dynamic weather and light effects’. Much influenced by Surrealism, Myerscough-Walker lived in Chelsea and knew English painters such as Sutherland. In 1936 he designed an Art Deco entrance to the Zoological Gardens at Dudley Zoo, with a strong use of perspective, and a strong contrast between the ‘streamlined sweep of the entrance roof’ and the ‘vertical line of trees that frame the entrance’. Wrote Stage and Film Décor in 1940, ‘an historical overview of décor from the symbolic simplicity of the Greeks to modern times’.
Information collated from: Royoung Booksellers, ‘Stage and Film Décor, by Myerscough-Walker, R.’, http://www.royoung.com/cgi-bin/ryb455/2193.html, accessed October 3 2003.
Hi Bex
In the text above you say that raymond designed the entrance to dudly zoo
I belive that it was by bethold lubetkin
http://www.c20society.org.uk/casework/reports/2010/endangered-species-dudley-zoos-tectons-on-wmf-watchlist.html
I would be very interested in anything you know about any other buildings by him other than the Chilwell house you have my picture of
regards
robin