Women at Work

Margaret Calvert (1936 - )

Screenprint

2018

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  • About the work
    Location
    Country: France
    City: Paris
    Place: British Embassy
    Margaret Calvert (born 1936) is best known for designing – together with Jock Kinneir (1917–1994) – the UK road signage system, which came into effect on 1 January 1965 and is still in place today. Calvert's iconic ‘Man at Work’ road sign provided the starting point for her painting ‘Woman at Work’, created in 2008. This 16-colour screen print, Woman at Work’, 2018, is a meticulous translation of the painting in collaboration with Jealous Print Studio.

    Prior to Calvert and Kinneir’s designs, there was no unified signage system in the UK, which could lead to confusion for road users. The pair also designed the Transport font used on the designs, which later was further developed into the New Transport typeface for gov.uk. Their work has become one of the largest and most-recognised public design projects in Britain.
  • About the artist
    Graphic designer, typographer and educator, Margaret Calvert was born in South Africa, moving to England as a teenager in 1950. In the late 1950s, she completed a four-year National Diploma in Design course at Chelsea College of Art, specialising in illustration and printmaking. There she met Jock Kinneir, a visiting tutor who had recently left Design Research Unit (among Britain’s most prestigious design consultancies in the 1950s and 1960s) to start his own practice. In 1957, Calvert assisted Kinneir in the design of a signage system for Gatwick Airport; a collaboration which would eventually lead to a design partnership and the establishment of their design firm Kinneir Calvert Tuhill. Calvert has had a long association with the Royal College of Art as Head of Graphic Design from 1986 to 1991, having taught part-time from 1966. In 2011, she was elected a Royal Designer for Industry, and in 2016 awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Royal College of Art. That same year, she received an OBE for services to Typography and Road Safety, as well the Misha Black Medal for distinguished services to design education. Most recently, she was awarded the London Design Festival’s 2017 Lifetime Achievement Medal.
  • Explore
    Places
    Subjects
    shovel/spade, woman
    Materials & Techniques
    screenprint
  • Details
    Artist
    Margaret Calvert (1936 - )
    Title
    Women at Work
    Edition
    15/25
    Date
    2018
    Medium
    Screenprint
    Dimensions
    height: 152.2 cm, width: 102.5 cm
    Acquisition
    Purchased from Jealous Gallery, July 2018
    Inscription
    bl: 15/25 ; br: Margaret Calvert 2017
    Provenance
    Jealous Gallery; purchased by GAC 2018
    GAC number
    18767