Dr Paul Rennie
Title
Practices Tutor Contexts BA (Hons) Graphic Communication Design
College
Central Saint Martins
Email address
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Researcher Research
Biography
Paul Rennie is acknowledged as a leading authority on the historical development of graphic design in Britain. Paul combines his academic work with collecting vintage posters and curating the Rennies Seaside Modern Gallery with his wife, Karen.Back in the early 2000s Paul was fortunate to be given the chance to look at some posters by Tom Eckersley and to find a story. He chose to focus on a group of accident prevention posters designed by Tom during WW2. He was awarded a doctorate for this work.
In 2012, he received an unexpected telephone call from the organisation that had commissioned these posters. They had rediscovered their archive of artwork and posters in an abandoned warehouse. Since then, he has been working with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. Safety Posters (2015), a book celebrating the centenary of RoSPA and describing the significance of their poster campaign will be published in June 2015.
In 2021 the monograph on the graphic work of Tom Eckersley was published by Batsford, and with the association of the Eckersley Archive at LCC UAL.
A history of British Modern Posters curated from Paul and Karen's collection of vintage posters and graphic design was published in 2010.
In addition to his roles in Folkestone and at CSM, Paul is an external member of the Art Committee at Imperial Healthcare Charity Trust, and a supporter of the Sorrell Foundation's, Saturday Art Class