OTD in early British television: 7 September 1938
John Wyver writes: The Wednesday evening of 7 September 1938 featured a 18-minute talk by portraitist and muralist Edward Halliday titled Masterpieces on Your Walls. Using sixteen examples, he discussed ‘the advantages of modern colour reproductions which bring a wide variety of good pictures, old and new, within reach of all but the very poor.’
This was one of a number of programmes by which producer Mary Adams aimed to improve the visual sensibility of the nation (another will be the focus of Wednesday’s post). Halliday’s choice featured Botticelli’s ‘Primavera’, two Van Goghs and still lifes by Cezanne and Braque.
More recent work included a view of Muzzano by Carl [or Karl] Hofer, Paul Nash’s ‘Sussex Landscape’ (possibly ‘Landscape at Iden’, 1929, still available from Tate as a print), ‘Market Cross, Treboul’ (above), a very fine 1930 painting by Christopher Wood, and an ‘Antelope’ by John Skeaping, an artist who appeared in several of Adams’ inter-war broadcasts.
[OTD post no. 264; part of a long-running series leading up to the publication on 8 January 2026 of my book Magic Rays of Light: The Early Years of Television in Britain, which can now be pre-ordered from Bloomsbury here.]
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