Fly-by-night: Collins White Circle Artists Part VII

Tuesday 15 December 2009

Collins White Circle Artists Part VII - Margaret Paull (2)

In part I I introduced Margaret Paull who started working in 1943 for W. Collins Sons & Co. Canada Ltd. as an artist for the White Circle imprint and posted her first six covers.

By mid 1944 she was “in charge of design and format on Collins’ productions and advertising” (Quill & Quire September 1944, p. 70), including hard cover dust jackets. A 1947 article on Canadian book design said that “Collins is also one of the few Canadian publishers employing a full time staff artist in Margot Paul [sic] who is responsible for many a clever jacket, advertisement or catalogue in an amazing variety of styles” (Q&Q January 1947, p. 33). A 1948 article (Q&Q November 1948, p. 15) included her among artists whose “recent publications bear witness to the growing maturity and originality of Canadian jacket art” and in 1949 Paull was one of three dust jacket designers to have a book in the First Annual Exhibition of Canadian Advertising and Editorial Art (Q&Q May 1949, p. 17).

Paull was involved in the publishing business outside of Collins and was a founder of the Book Publishers Professional Association (Q&Q May 1985, p. 20). After 42 years with the firm, she retired in 1985 as the managing editor (obituary – The Globe and Mail April 1, 2008, p. S7). She described her philosophy as “you care about what you publish and you care all the way along. If you don’t it’s not going to work.” (Q&Q May 1985. p. 20)

Here are the next six of her 67 covers for White Circle. The first one is 1943, the rest 1944.