Edwards Aubrey

Year working: Circa 1925 -

Aubrey Edwards was trained at the Birmingham College of Art and worked as in-house artist for Ausin and from 1945 was responsible for all the in-house art direction of publicity material such as sales brochures and posters. He retired from the organisation in the 1980’s long after Austin was assimilated into the BMC organisation in 1952 and British Leyland in 1968. During this time he produced work of his own but also commissioned work from specialist freelance artists such as Johnston, Gildersleve and George Lane. Amongst other commissions George Lane produced a strip cartoon for the Austin Magazine and no doubt as a humorous comment on the Client it was called Awkward Aubrey. Aubrey also commissioned Dame Laura Knight to produce the oil paintings of the Longbridge plant that are now in Gaydon Museum. His work was in a variety of media from scraperboard, pen and ink, gouache and airbrush. Because Aubrey was an in-house artist very little (if any) of his art was signed. (Thanks to David Whyley for supplying information and images)

Austin Atlantic publicity artwork

George Lane cartoon strip called Awkward Aubrey for the Austin Magazine 1949

Detail of scraperboard image of the Austin Atlantic record attempt published in the Austin Magazine.

A young Aubrey Edwards

Appreciation written by David Whyley published in the Austin Torque magazine

Ditto page 2.