Lane Francis George

Year working: 1910 - 1963

In my previous introduction I started by asking the question ‘Who was George Lane?’ Saying that he was an unsung hero of The Motor magazine yet we knew very little about the man. I said that there was a small archive of his art sold by Auctioneers Reeman Dansie of Colchester in December 2016. This was said to be entered by his daughter Jenny, so I took the opportunity to send stamped addressed envelopes asking that the auctioneers forward my letters to her. Having no response made me think I had lost the chance. However, mid April 2024 I had contact from Jenny resulting from my 2016 letter which led to a meeting later in the month. From this meeting, subsequent telephone calls and research mainly by Stuart Middlemiss on birth, marriage and deaths websites we have been able to start to put together a profile of George Lane. Of major importance was a small suitcase containing a mixed archive of his work which I purchased from Jenny.. This consisted of a lot of preliminary sketches, clippings from The Motor magazine of his work (1944 – 1958), sketch books including one taken to Le Mans in 1954, plus a few contemporary letters to him commissioning work or passing comments on submitted artwork. The original artwork was for several of the publications he had worked for and featured cars, boats and planes plus life drawings. These have all been stamped with a George Lane rubber namestamp in the style of his oval signature. This has been applied in a blue watercolour. so the work can be identified as coming from the archive. All other contemporary signatures on his art are black. It would seem that George Lane was born in the Eastbourne area in the final quarter of 1910 as George Francis Lane and died in West Mersea near Colchester in the first quarter of 1963. He married Sybil Mary Lilley in the Kensington, London area in the third quarter of 1935 and their daughter was born Anna Jenny Lane in September 1937. Sybil died aged 93 years in West Mersea in what is assumed as 2001. Unfortunately Jenny has no records of the early life of George and it would seem that he attended the public school – Wellington College. It is believed that he studied at the Slade and the Royal College of Art. This is a family recollection and cannot be confirmed. The only other pre-war item in the daughter’s possession is a tankard which is engraved Berkhampsted DMC (District Motor Club) Speed Hill Climb 1933; Driver/Entrant G Lane MG car. I have looked through motoring publications but cannot find any other motor sport references. Further research is needed via Census Records to determine where he lived pre-war. We know from the addresses on correspondence that he was living in Earls Court, London during the War, moving to a houseboat at Walton on the Naze in 1950. They were there for 6 years before relocating to West Mersea. One other contact was Mike Tilyard, his father Sid Tilyard was a family friend pre-war and during the war. Sid was the landlord of the Abingdon Arms in Kensington. George and his wife Bris, had a basement flat just off the Earls Court Road. Mike recalls how his father and George were nearly hit by a German Rocket whilst watching from a rooftop. It exploded so close that it shook the house plaster off the walls, making it extremely difficult to get down the stairs. I have not determined where and when Lane started his artistic career. We see his work in Motorsport and The Motor magazines from the 1930’s and in Speed magazine from October 1935.. His work in Speed magazine only appears occasionally as Hans Moser and Russell Brockbank would seem to be the principal artists at the time. However, he has at least one centrefold double page spread of Brooklands racing so they must have appreciated his art. It was also interesting to see in the archive clippings of art done for The Autocar in 1939. He was excused war service but worked for the Auxiliary Fire Service. In the archive there is a letter from the Royal Academy advising that one of his oil paintings, a self portrait, had been accepted for an exhibition of art by ‘Fireman Artists in 1941 at the Royal Academy. He was also finding time to complete art for The Motor during the war. He is referred to by The Motor as ‘our artist’ but I believe that he was never a staff artist and only worked freelance. Post-war times were very hard for artists with a lack of opportunity and fewer publications due to paper shortage and increase use of photographic illustrations. Jenny believes that he worked for a short period as a driving instructor in Wales training ambulance drivers. However in this period he completed some of his best retrospective art. Jenny said he worked from memory and did not have a library of photographic references Living away from London he did not visit the office and all briefs for artwork were by letter. He rarely attended race meetings except he covered Le Mans in the early 1950’s for The Motor but did not go again after the 1955 disaster. Money post-war was so tight that he could not afford a car. Jenny said that all is caricatures of famous racing drivers were done from memory. His work with The Motor tailed off and he did not produce any art in his last year, eventually dying suddenly of a heart attack at the young age of 52 years. George Lane was a master of black and white illustration using various techniques such as pencil, charcoal, gouache or pen and ink, often using the different media in combination. His use of colour was very limited, but watercolours and oil paintings have been seen. This was probably due the urgency of his work for magazines and colour took longer to use and dry, plus most of his work in any case was reproduced in black and white. Jenny remembers running artwork to the Post Office to catch the post. An early colour work noted is the front cover design for the 1949 British Grand Prix at Silverstone where The Motor using George Lane provided the artwork. The original for this exists in the collection of the Royal Automobile Club. The subject of his art varies considerably from studies of Grand Prix racing, veteran cars, current road vehicles, story illustrations, industrial scenes, caricatures and cartoons. The styles of his art can change from scraperboard to stark contrast pen work to very soft charcoal very reminiscent of Frank Wootton. Wootton and Lane both worked at The Motor at the same time so it is not surprising that there may have been some influence. George Lane’s art tended to be fairly small in size on cartridge paper or art board less than 12 inches square and is simply signed ‘Lane’, or the smaller studies are just initialled ‘gl’. Larger work was signed George Lane in a distinctive oval shape. He never used his middle name or initial on artwork. Unfortunately quite a lot of studies are unsigned. This is particularly true where he was doing a composite illustration of several sketches, where only one of them would be signed. We are fortunate that there are quite a lot of his original works survive. Many came to the market with the sale of The Motor and Autocar archives in 2001 plus the small archive from the Reeman Dancie sale and the suitcase contents..This work is only a small part of his output as the list referenced on the Bearalley website of his book illustrations indicate. George Lane’s work stands to be compared with any of the greats of British automobile art such as Crosby, Lipscombe and De Grineau, and is superior to other artists of the time for example Roy Nockolds. Why he is not recognised as being at the forefront is that he did not paint the large eye catching pieces and was limited to the smaller magazine type illustrations. Also The Motor magazine did not promote the work of it’s artists. There are comments in my details of De Grineau that he suffered in comparison with Gordon Crosby because The Motor did not have exhibitions of artist’s work and issue colour supplements of motoring art that readers could frame. The Autocar on the other hand promoted the work of it’s staff artist holding exhibitions, displays of Crosby art at Le Mans and issued at least 24 colour supplements. The other sad fact is that he died so young at 52 years and we probably lost at least another 20 years of artwork. It is just fortunate that George Lane was around recording such an important time in motoring history