GENTLE GUNMAN 1952 John Mills, Dirk Bogarde JAMES BOSWELL Ealing QUAD POSTER

Original British 30 inch x 40 inch Quad Poster for the 1952 Basil Dearden Ealing Studios Drama THE GENTLE GUNMAN, based on the play by Roger MacDougall and starring John Mills, Dirk Bogarde, Robert Beatty, Elizabeth Sellars, Barbara Mullen, Eddie Byrne, Joseph Tomelty and Gilbert Harding.

The problems of an Irish family of IRA sympathisers in London in 1941 who see different ways of helping their country’s cause. One of the brothers turns his back on violence to free prisoners.

Poster art by James Boswell. Born in Westport, New Zealand in 1906, Boswell was educated at the Elam School of Art in Auckland before moving to England in 1925 to study at the Royal College of Art. Although primarily a painter he temporarily gave this up in 1932 to work in graphics. At this time he joined the Communist Party and in 1933 founded the Artists International association, promoting left-wing and anti-militarist art. He attended James Fitton’s (Kind Hearts and Coronets) evening classes in lithography at the Central School and after the war became art director for Shell and art editor for the magazine Lilliput from 1947 to 1950. He is recognized as one of the outstanding draughtsmen of the 1930s and 1940s.

Printed by Graphic Reproductions Ltd. (Ealing’s main printer through the 1940s and 1950s)

The poster is in very good condition with a vertical centre fold, a piece out of the top left corner, slight wear along the bottom edge and a few edge nicks.