Found this mint copy of my 1987 calendar for Bank of Ireland in the attic where almost every work I have ever produced is fairly safely stored. Cleaned a little damp mould off the black area of the cover and photographed all the pages for my records.
Over the years I have had my artwork published in many books, portfolios, publications, ads, music album covers, calendars, etc., so time to have a look back at a few of them, starting with this beauty, a large size calendar for The Bank of Ireland, from a time when they cared about their customers and gave these yearly calendars away free to them, just for goodwill.
They paid real money too and they were a joy to work on.
This beautiful calendar was commissioned by the new Bank of Ireland marketing director, Gerry Murphy, and only for him it would never have seen the light of day -and it almost never did.
Back then the bank was run by what I regarded as very old-fashioned, conservative bankers and Gerry decided the bank’s rather fuddy-duddy image needed a bit of renovation and updating.
One of his ideas was to produce a calendar that would break entirely from the previous free calendars which were safe, a bit staid, and introduce the bank’s customers to a more modern take on Irish heritage via my Celtic-themed artwork.
Now when I look back and see the havoc wreaked on society by their younger, more market-driven successors which led to the complete collapse of our entire banking system with their crazy multi-billion gambling debts foisted on us all by the brainless cowardly government who brought in the historic and eminently stupid and disastrous ‘Bank Guarantee’, I wonder and wonder again.
I wonder what those same old fuddy-duddy, conservative bankers would have done to prevent such crazy gambling. I really doubt they would have ever countenanced such outrageous behavior. Those bright new managers and directors would have gotten their marching orders and a sharp kick in the backside as they exited stage left. Instead, they all exited with vast pensions and huge houses and we all picked up their tab. Nice.
But that’s the benefit of hindsight.
Back to the calendar story.
I produced a very elaborate rough dummy copy for his research team as I was up against a few competitors and their ideas for a new look for the bank annual free calendar.
When the research came through my design was a winner, especially amongst their female customers. This was 1987 and the female market was becoming the market of the future so the balls all bounced in my direction and we got the go-ahead.
I had four months to produce six key paintings and I used every day of my time to try to bring new life visually to our most ancient monuments.
I was given a free hand, which was unusual, and the only caveat being that I should try to represent all four provinces which was no problem. Every province in Ireland is covered in these intriguing neolithic monuments and some, like Newgrange with its solar observatory and beautifully carved entrance stones dating back over 5,000 years, are world-renowned.
I recommended a writer and former advertising copywriter, Iain MacCarthaigh (Ian McCarthy) I knew from my days in the ad business and who I respected hugely.
Iain was commissioned to write the introduction page with the help of eminent archaeologist Peter Harbison.
I didn’t know Peter but I did have a few of his books so I was delighted to have these two heavyweights on board. The work they produced added weight to the authenticity of the project and set the bar quite high for the artwork.
I had already a printer in mind I had used previously, Ormonde Printing (who printed my book Érinsaga) on the Dublin quays and once the paintings were finished they were photographed on 10’’x 8’’ colour transparencies.
Scanning was in its infancy back then and needed a computer the size of a small house to produce a decent image but very lo-res so old ways were best.
Example: At the final most important meeting for this new, innovative bank calendar, the entire board of the Bank of Ireland was present. The meeting was held in the boardroom in the bank headquarters in the old parliament building of the British-run government of Ireland and it stank of wealth, privilege, and power.
The directors were all of a class I thought time had forgotten, all very rich and pretty ancient, obviously just a little bored and irked at this intrusion of the artist and the marketing manager on their banking day which I presumed they spent counting gold coins like Scrooge McDuck.
Under the watchful eye of Gerry, who warned me not to react no matter what I heard, I proudly presented all six finished paintings.
They gazed patiently at my finished mounted artwork and commented little until one geezer lay back in his studded, cushioned red leather chair and kind of sniffed and declared kind of angrily ;
‘Do we really want a bank calendar of old ruins and boring graveyards, why would the bank want to do a calendar of all this old stuff?’
He looked contemptuously at my Newgrange Kerbstone painting with the beautifully decorated stone and a few crows in the sky and muttered ‘Graves, all aul graves’.
Now at this point, the paper had been ordered from the UK, the printer had been put on standby, we had commissioned the photographer, the platemakers to be ready and we just needed a go-ahead. This casual dismissal of the artwork was potentially lethal.
My reaction was rage as I felt this arrogant remark was patronizing, inaccurate, and disrespectful but I kept my head down and let Gerry dig us out, as he expertly did indeed, explaining very calmly to this ignorant aul’ prick the significance of these monuments, but I remember adding that these monuments were some of the earliest solar observatories in all of Europe and the America’s -‘and only last week, I added, the great author of ‘2001, A Space Oddessy’, Arthur C. Clarke, was on BBC TV reminding us all that Newgrange, featured in my series of paintings, was ‘The oldest building in the entire world, older than the Pyramids and even Stonehenge’.
This seemed to calm him down and he nodded, ‘Ah, sure what would I know?’
I was so tempted to answer: ‘Sweet Fuck All, yeh old bollocks’ but Gerry just thanked the board and we exited.
I had to duck into a side door to stop myself cursing aloud but we did get the final go-ahead.
Back to the project.
Once the artwork was photographed to my satisfaction by my late photographer friend Louis Pieterse on these large 10”x8” transparencies, they then went to Masterworks, the platemakers, and colour separation specialists in Dublin.
I remember that an old schoolmate from my primary school, Saint Patrick’s in Drumcondra, a lad named Freddie Hanna, was the man in charge of the business of bringing my art into life and I marveled at his dedication. On the many trips to the platemakers, I watched intrigued as he retouched the colour film negatives by hand, using tiny 0 and 01 brushes to add solidity to the purples on the cyan and magenta negatives.
This was all very hi-tech back then and took forever but nowadays with my camera, my own scanner, and a powerful Mac I can do virtually all that hard graft myself in a few days and I’m still no expert compared to some of the Marvel and DC colourists I work with now.
Finally, we were all done with meetings and ready to print.
Again I made sure every colour was accurately reproduced by being present as Ormonde Press ran the initial proofs, then as the actual print run began I made sure that everything was spot on.
The printers who knew me well at this point went to great lengths to produce a state-of-the-art colour reproduction calendar that was as good as anything produced by those awesome and gigantic Heidelberg letterpress printing machines back in those days.
The print run was over 100,000 copies, demand was brisk in every branch, and in the end, it was a huge success so it was nice to be again commissioned in 1991 to produce another epic calendar for the same bank, this time without the slightest speed bump.
Jim FitzPatrick. 2021.
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