Ruth Artmonsky
I NTRO D U CTI O N I first came across W.S. Cowell Ltd. when writing about The School Prints, a madcap adventure in which a young debutante hauls Geoffrey Smith, a Director of Cowell’s, across France, to persuade the likes of Picasso, Dufy, Leger and Matisse to produce works for British school children. I was momentarily intrigued by the thought of a provincial printer swooping across France in a small plane to meet the masters. As my focus was on the young debutante I foolishly accepted a report, without further checking, that Cowell’s records had been destroyed when the firm was sold. Imagine my surprise and delight when, some years later, I was handed a somewhat worn file containing over one hundred and thirty letters from the great and the good of the British publishing and art world, obviously collected together by Cowells, which they had received in response to their publicity for a book of types, compiled by John Lewis in 1948. The file was to be lodged in Lewis’s archives in Reading University. I wrote a quick note, to be added to 6
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