Sir Alfred Munnings, P.R.A., R.W.S. 1878-1959

At the age of 14 and a half, Munnings was apprenticed to Messrs Page Bros. and Co. of Norwich, a firm of lithographers, where he became adept at label and poster design. His decorative lettering and images were used to sell 'lemonade - chocolates - mustard - whisky - pills - even for poultry foods or election posters'. He soon showed himself adept and moved onto more ambitious poster designs such as A Yellow Spider, claiming that he was "doing work which they could not". Caley's Chocolates were based next door, and the director, John Shaw Tompkins, became Munnings' first patron. Tompkins took the young Munnings on many Continental trips, most regularly to Germany, France and Switzerland. While the art nouveau style was known in England, and particularly to lithographers, the organic flourishes of A Yellow Spider, with its outsized irises, may well have developed in Munnings' work as a result of early exposure to artists such as Gaillard and Mucha.