Described by Advertiser’s Weekly as ‘youthful’, ‘bespectacled’, with a ‘scholarly stoop’, Varnon had joined the Merchants Navy Comforts Service (MNCS) in late 1942. Varnon moved from his own business, Peter Varnon and Associated Artists in Norfolk Street, where he had done work for the MOI until he felt compelled to take a permanent job with the MNCS. Working under T. Kirkland Bridge, Varnon’s posters aimed to avoid the ‘charity appeal’. Varnon produced the majority of the Merchant Navy Comforts Service (MNCS) posters.
Information collated from: Anonymous, ‘Why M.N. Comforts Service Posters Have Proved a Success’, Advertiser’s Weekly, Vol. 122, No. 1,586, October 14 1943, p.35; Anonymous, ‘Artists Make the Wheels Go Round’, Advertiser’s Weekly, Vol. 124, No. 1,615, May 4 1944, p.203
One reply on “Peter Varnon”
“I knew Peter Varnon very well and have many beautifully illustrated letters from him sent to me when I was at the Royal Merchant Navy School, Wokingham, Berkshire. I spent many holidays with him at his flat at 40A Hampstead High Street in London. Below his flat he stored the Lamp Lights for which he was well known. His ‘stoop’ was a hunchback caused when he fell from a tree as a boy.
Bob Lloyd
Bulimba
Queensland
Australia”
rodilo2@bigpond.com
21/03/13