The Erotic Sweetshop
By Helen Murphy and Nick Pelling
There can’t be many owners of sweetshops who have ended up serving three months hard labour for selling their products. This is precisely what happened to a Mr Wall in 1906 when he was caught selling erotic photographs from a range of 1200 photos of women in a French bordello. The images were packaged in brown envelopes and stashed under the counter away from the simpler pleasures of sherbet lemons. (Presumably the give-away to the Police must have been the queues of adult men, and maybe women, outside Mr Wall’s sweetshop.)
This little bit of Edwardian bother is, of course why the shop – now a delightful pub on Queens Road – is known as 1200 Postcards. The current owner, Dave Brumley, in conjunction with the artists Montague and Armstrong, have had the brilliant idea of asking local creatives to recreate, or re-imagine, the risqué postcards in a contemporary style. The resultant postcard art is to be sold off at auction to raise money for charity.
But is it Art?
They are asking artists each to create twelve erotic postcards which will then be carefully curated to create a unique exhibition in the gallery upstairs at the pub in March. Obviously, this may raise a few eyebrows given that one person’s erotica may be another’s dodgy drawing or pornographic image. But that is the interesting thing about this challenge- it asks just what ‘erotic’ means in today’s more complex sexual world. And then, inevitably, there is the old question, is it art or is it just titillation?
Dodgy Dukes
Of course, poor old Mr Wall could not, in those days, offer any defence of ‘artistic’ merit. Edwardian England is named after Edward VII (known as Bertie), one of the most debauched royals of modern times – current dodgy dukes notwithstanding. As ever, in terms of law breaking, it was one rule for them and one rule for Mr Wall.
But, happily, Mr Wall’s creative approach to con-fectionery may yet have socially beneficial consequences. The exhibition and subsequent auction will raise money for the charity Haven Distribution. This organisation was set up
by Lee Humphries, who runs Printed Matter Bookshop in Queens Road, not that far from 1200 Postcards. It offers “practical support” for prisoners by supplying them with books and educational literature to help them study whilst in prison. It can be very difficult for a prisoner to access text books – the prison library service is unevenly resourced and even getting a personal dictionary can be tricky. If an inmate speaks a language other than English, or needs help with reading skills, the problems quickly multiply. Haven seeks to address all of this to help make rehabilitation more of a reality.
Erotic Artistry
On a more poetic note of solace, as the American wit, Mason Cooley, once suggested, for all people in somewhat trapped situations, “reading gives us some place to go when we have to stay where we are.”
• If anyone would like to contribute to this project by offering their own erotic artistry, please put your visions on twelve postcards (standard A6 size) and send or deliver your artwork to Montague and Armstrong, 15 Kings Road,
St Leonards-on-Sea, TN37 6EA. These should be in a plain brown envelope please. It is what Mr Wall would have wanted.
• The Exhibition will last from 4 March to 16 April, with the auction on 18 April. For more information on the charity go to havendistribution.org.uk
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