Box-top art in the Sublime Aesthetic

For my brother Marek

I'm of what author Geoff Dyer described as the 'Airfix Generation', post-war boys brought up gluing together polystyrene kits of aircraft, tanks and warships. An all-consuming pastime that engaged millions of us around the world, it was big business for companies like Airfix and Frog in the UK, Revell, Monogram and Aurora in the US, Heller in France, Tamiya and Hasegawa in Japan.

Marketing was crucial; the competition for pocket money intense. And so packaging played a crucial role, especially as markets opened and the choice of products became wider.

Any boy born in the UK in the 1950s and 1960s will be instantly familiar with the works of Roy Cross, though they might not know his name. Roy Cross was employed by Airfix from 1964 to 1974, which neatly encompasses the time I made Airfix models by the score. He's still alive (99 next April) by the way! There are two excellent books (and I thank my brother Marek for buying the first one for me) about the Roy Cross era of  Airfix box art (link here)

There's immediacy and action in all his Airfix box-tops; the book shows the alternative sketches that never made it past the marketing men. Any work lacking the necessary flak-bursts, dropping bombs, enemy aircraft and ground explosions was judged as being insufficiently exciting. Here are some classics... (ironically, I had neither of these Airfix kits as a boy).

However, this post is not going to be about Roy Cross, but about his lesser-known transatlantic rival, Jack Leynnwood. Working for America's biggest manufacturer of plastic hobby kits, Revell, around the same time as Roy Cross was at Airfix, Leynnwood (1921-1999) showed an otherworldly aesthetic that resonated deeply with me. In particular, the dark skies, dramatic lighting, the harsh landscapes - and above all the sinister, threatening atmosphere of the Cold War at its height. The subjects - US military hardware, which kept us in Western Europe safe from the USSR.

Here are some examples of Revell Cold War-era box art that I remember well (although Revell kits were nowhere near as widely available or advertised in the UK as Airfix). These two I made myself (I recall getting this helicopter for my eighth birthday).

The Arctic setting and day-glo markings (to make it easier to spot aircraft downed on the snow or ice) attracted me to this kit of the Northrop F-89 Scorpion, below.

Below: iconic American strategic bomber, stop-gap between the Boeing B-29/B-50 Superfortress and Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, the Convair B-36 Peacemaker, a plane that always fascinated me - the Magnesium Cloud, six turnin' and four burnin'.

Not only aircraft, rockets too... below: a Corporal surface-to-surface missile set, redolent of the Cold War threat of battlefield nuclear weapons

And below, the launching of the Snark, an intercontinental nuclear cruise missile from this era.

Below: box-art I don't remember seeing at the time, but it's so good, as it hits all the right notes - a Lockheed Neptune maritime patrol bomber taking off from a base in the Arctic. Glorious - the sky darkening to a deep, midnight blue; the stark icebergs, the day-glo markings, the crawler tractor, the crew wearing deeply hooded N-3B parkas...

Below: my brother mocked up this Revell-style box art of a North Dakota grain elevator, in the style of Jack Leynnman.

The golden age of box-art passed with legislation requiring 'truth in advertising' - all that could be displayed on the packaging was a photograph of the built-up model. Both Roy Cross and Jack Leynmann were 'let go' by Airfix and Revell around this time, the mid-1970s.

Jack Leynnman's aesthetic has influenced mine, in particular the quality of the skies and the light; his subjects also harks back to an America that is somehow more intimately connected with me via anomalous qualia memories ('exomnesia events') than should be the case. More than just a coincidental trigger - something I sense deeply.

This time last year:
Trains of thought, insights and 'voices'

This time three years ago:
Parliamentary train at West Ealing station

This time four years ago:
Progress in Jakubowizna

This time six years ago:
Miedzianka by Filip Springer

This time seven years ago:
Out of the third, into the fourth

This time eight years ago:
Inverted reflections

This time nine years ago:
Observations from London's WC1
and Observations from the City of London

This time eight years ago:
Civilising Jeziorki's wetlands

This time 11 years ago:
Warsaw's Aleje Jerozolimskie

This time 13 years ago:
Melancholy autumn mood in Łazienki

This time 14 years ago:
Autumn gold, Zamienie

This time 15 years ago:
Flamenco Sketches - Seville