Force of circumstances has driven an Englishwoman—one Mrs Coleman—to adopt the unusual occupation of pavement artist as a means to earn a living for herself and her sick husband. She is probably the first gentlewoman to attempt this calling, which is one of the common street sights of London, though comparatively unknown here.

It is estimated that there are about 300 persons, men and lads, in the English metropolis earning a living at this trade of drawing pictures on the pavements and collecting pennies from the crowds that gather. Coloured chalks are used, and very realistic scenes sketched, many of the artists being genuinely talented. A shipwreck or any sort of marine picture is a popular subject, the blue of the sea and colours of the ship and sky all being faithfully reproduced.

The exciting happenings of the day are seized upon too, the face of a murderer or the environment of any thrilling occurrence being promptly brought out. Formerly the business was conducted on a sort of system, “pitches” or good vantage points being regularly pre-empted and respected by the other members of the fraternity. Now, however, the increased number of pictures to be had in all prints, even the cheapest, has had a depressing effect on the pursuit; still on fair days, Mrs Coleman earns on an average, $1.25 a day, and when it rains she stays at home and prepares her chalks.

Published in the New York Times: 7^th January 1894

Researched & transcribed by Philip Battle

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At the corner of the square

All day long you’ll find me there

Just a pavement artist I

All my own work sort of thing

In my battered hat you’ll sling

Coppers as you pass me by

I’m an artist, an artist

Sketching all alone

No canvas of my own

My canvas just a stone

To bring to life the golden dreams

The unsuccessful schemes

That filled my youth with hopes

That long have gone

My studio the world

My skylight is the cloud

No model of my own

My models just the crowd

I’m a fellow of that vagabond school

Of men who’ve paid for playing the fool

An artist of the paving stone

Tho’ I’m weary many days

There are times when life seems gay

When sunbeams seem to help me to forget

But there always comes the rain

Washes out my work again

Leaving just the measure of regret

I’m an artist, an artist

Sketching all alone

No canvas of my own

My canvas just a stone

To bring to life the golden dreams

The unsuccessful schemes

That filled my youth with hopes

That long have gone

My studio the world

My skylight is the cloud

No model of my own

My models just the crowd

I’m a fellow of that vagabond school

Of men who’ve paid for playing the fool

An artist of the paving stone

An artist of the paving stone

Original British Pathe film description:

Raymond Newell sings- The Pavement Artist. Filmed: 02/08/1934

Edited by Fred Watts; Pathe Studio, London.

Raymond Newell as "The Pavement Artist" original still 1934

Titles read: ‘Now Pathe Pictorial has pleasure in presenting – RAYMOND NEWELL – the famous Baritone and Radio and Musical Comedy Star in “The PAVEMENT ARTIST”.

On a set dressed to look like a city street with a wall and railing and bushes behind, we see character baritone singer Raymond Newell sitting on the ground beside a drawing on the pavement. He is dressed in rather ragged clothes and sings sombrely of being an artist, sketching all alone on a stone. He mentions being of the vagabond school of men who paid for playing the fool.

A couple walk by, stop and look at his pictures and drop a coin into his hat. Then Raymond sings of being weary, of the rain washing away his work and of being “an artist of the paving stone”.

Pathe Pictorial History: 1918 – 1969

First released in March 1918, Pathe Pictorial was the longest running series in the history of the British cinemagazine, in continuous production for over fifty years. It established the general format of the genre, focusing on stories of general interest, acting as a supplement to the company’s newsreel Pathe Gazette.

Pictorials where originally silent, sound was introduced in 1929

Raymond Newell made a large number of these short films in the 1930′s dressed as various characters—Sailors, solders etc. all in the tradition of the British music hall form of entertainment, popular at the time.

The Pathe Pictorial cinemagazine ended in 1969 due to the onset and competition from home television.

Written and researched by Philip Battle

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From his unpublished Autobiography

James William Carling (colourised) as a boy: Liverpool (circ 1869)

“………..Another of my favourite drawing places was in Ranelagh Street. Like James Street and the Exchange, Ranelagh St. was not free from the presence of the policeman. The last mentioned individual beat me from the crowding pavement and often tried to have me imprisoned for disregarding his warnings—but I laughed at his threats. I knew by practice I was too small to be incarcerated, for I was often arrested—mark it, a boy of six arrested for drawing pavement pictures—and taking their brutal beatings as a matter of course, I drew my pictures, preferring a bloody face and a bruised limb to inanition and death by starvation.

Acting on the principle of “root hog or die” I choose the spots where the possibility of being beaten was smallest and leaving the dangerous and fretful locality of St. Johns Market, I sauntered into Ranelagh St.

Ranelagh St. was rather a long looking street and as the policeman’s favourite stand was away towards the top end, I had lots of side streets to run into and warily asked the crowd at intervals “Is the Peeler comin” I was always able to circumvent the policeman and when he came down towards my line he always found that the bird had flown.

JAMES CARLING: self-portrait drawing as a child pavement artist; screeving at night outside a public house, Liverpool. (circ. 1869)

There was one disadvantage in steering clear of the Ranelagh St. official. The farther I got from the latter, the nearer I approached a neighbour of his in Bold St. and as the Bold Street policeman was a vindictive man, a fellow with the face of Sir Hudson Lowe, the jail-keeper of the great Corsican, he often exceeded his duty to harass me, the unsuspecting arab, trenched on the domain of the Ranelagh Street officer and giving me at four different periods four of the most brutal beatings I ever received, left his mark upon my mental camera as well as upon my body, and created a debt that redoubled with time, to be paid probably in this, possibly in the next world.

And now come my fit! I am about to describe a street associated with mournful recollections, a street whose history blackens in an instant the memories recalled of my native town, associated with a bitterness that wears the heart, a bitterness mingled with grief and pain. I entwine it with all that is bad and nothing that is good, with insulted poverty and supercilious wealth, with defiant republicanism and triumphant aristocracy, with all that I hate and abhor in the social system of my title—loving land. BOLD STREET, like Bryon’s Cintra, my heart sickens at your name!

And well it might, for I not only could not draw in that street I could not walk in it. Nor was I an exception to the rule. All poorly dressed boys were interdicted from it. The sight of a ragged coat was enough to bring the harsh “Move on!” or, what was worse, the more brutal application of the staff. Ah! You will say—“He’s been treated so once and makes more of the thing than it deserves” but spare me those criticisms.

People prone to look upon the surface (and even the best judges of character, keenest of observers never see the life below the lower classes when occupying a niche or two above the class they  would seek to hear about) are in utter ignorance concerning the desperate lives of the ragged children around them. They imagine because their accents are rough and their habits typical of the boxing den that their poverty and neglect of person are attributable to their innate ignorance and their natural depravity—but let one of them state that it is not their vulgarity. Refine and tone the boisterous gamin, give him the chances that your delicate aristocrats have, and the boy that dips his head in the mud for ha’penniers is not only the equal of your Norman descended scions but by the law of the fittest and the rule of the future, his superior in theory as well as in practice, and I know it!

Alas for them, they have no champions; none have ever drawn the sword in defence of the prodigy in rags. His brain develops in an iron mask, no room nor show for the poverty stricken genius. Others with lesser minds usurp the place of the natural nobility and the bright sons of the streets cut off in a land where talents are smothered, sink down like the sun in the shadow of poverty and crime.

Yet they shall be heard from in the bye and bye. This narrative—a still small voice, may herald the thunders of a future race and I launch this book like an old bottle upon the waters—to read when I am gone, when I have fretted my busy hour and am seen no more.”

The Words of James William Carling

Originally published in THE RAVEN (The James Carling illustrations of Edgar Allan Poe) 1982.

By kind permission of James Carling’s grandniece- Patricia Rose

Crowds gathering on BOLD STREET, Liverpool for the 3rd James Carling Competition 2011 (Photo: Derek Hyamson)

James Carling is an important figure in the history of popular art; to date, he is the earliest and the FIRST pavement artist to be fully documented, with his life history recorded from birth to death. As a child, he created something from nothing in an epic struggle against the grinding poverty of Victorian England; only to rise above his circumstances, and eventually make a successful career as a travelling artist in the USA.

Annually, his life & times are celebrated in his birth town of Liverpool, England with The James Carling International Pavement Art Competition. Taking place on Bold Street; the very street were, as James puts it “I not only could not draw in that street, I could not walk in it.”

The James Carling Competition 2011: Professional and amateur pavement artists descend on Bold Street from around the world & the UK. (Photo: Philip Battle)

For more information on the James Carling Story, you can read my previous blog here!

Join the James Carling Competition group on Facebook and bookmark our James Carling web-page to hear about future dates and developments, or even to take part in this year’s competition!

Written, transcribed and researched by Philip Battle

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A report from an American travel writer in Paris, France.

This one you see most often in France and Spain. Watch for the pavement artists with the huge chalked picture of the Mona Lisa at their knees. Notice their studied faces, how they hold the coloured chalk just so. With great deliberation, they add a few strokes here, maybe just a touch there. Then they sit back and look at the work with what is clearly the artistic spirit of the true and pained artist. There is a hat nearby where admirers can contribute to the artist’s income. For just £30 or so, you can even purchase a copy of this starving artist’s work.

RONSTER CARTOON--When is a Pavement artist, not a pavement artist?

The problem is that the picture is a print. If you get up early enough, you’ll see the (con) artist arrive. He’ll bring several Mona Lisa prints rolled up under his arm. He’ll lay one out in a prominent place on the pavement and then sit by it hour-after-hour with that incredibly good suffering-artist look, always about to add a little colour here or there, pausing, considering, choosing another colour. Perhaps this man does deserve your money for perpetrating such a great con, but certainly not for being an artist.

researched by Philip Battle.

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Dick van Dyke as "Bert the Screever" Original screen test photo (1963)

“Chim Chim Cher-ee” is the Oscar-winning ditty by Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman that is used effectively in the movie musical Mary Poppins (1964). The melody is first heard as pavement artist (Screever) Bert (Dick van Dyke), as a one-man band, performs it for a small crowd gathered in a London park. Later he sings the number to cheer up the glum siblings Jane (Karen Dotrice) and Michael Banks (Matthew Garber), with Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews) joining him in the song.

Although the lyric is in the vein of a nonsense song, the music has a haunting quality and the number takes on an almost reverent mood at times.

Mary Poppins original screever studio photo (1963)

The New Christy Minstrels and Burl Ives each had successful records of the song, which in the original screenplay was titled “Pavement Artist.” Louis Prima and Gia Maione recorded it as a duet, and in 1996 the number got a new interpretation by the Jazz Networks.

Other recording were made by such artists as  Louis Armstrong, Kahorn Nakasone, Barbara Hendricks and the Abbey Road Ensemble, the Boston Pops, and bluegrass rendition by Mike Toppins, Glen Duncan, Billy Troy, Jim Brown, James Freeze, and David Chase. In the 2006 Broadway version of Mary Poppins, Gavin Lee played Bert and sang the number, as he had in the original London production in 2004.

Pavement Artist lyrics

Chim chim-in-ey, chim chim-in-ey

Chim chim cher-oo!

I does what I likes and I likes what I do

Today I’m a screever and as you can see

A screever’s an artist of ‘ighest degree

And it’s all me own work

From me own memory

Chim chim-in-ey, chim chim-in-ey

Chim chim cher-oo!

I draws what I likes and I likes what I drew

No remuneration do I ask of you

But me cap would be glad of a copper or two

Chim chim-in-ey, chim chim-in-ey

Chim chim cher-oo!

La dum, de da dum

da da da da dum

Mmm hmm…

researched by Philip Battle.

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The English term for Pavement artist is SCREEVER. The term is over 200 years old and derived from the term SCRIVENER; meaning ‘to write’ or ‘a person who could read and write’ and originates from the Anglo-French escrivein, ultimately from Vulgate Latin *scriban-, scriba, alteration of Latin scriba (as scribe).

A typical ‘Copperplate Screever’ as published in the 1939 Guide to London (Page 42)

The term is derived from the writing, often Copperplate, that typically accompanied the works of pavement artists since the 1700’s. Screevers where not simply artists creating ‘pretty pictures,’ often the works would be accompanied by poems & proverbs; lessons on morality and political commentary on the day’s events. They were described as “producing a topical, pictorial newspaper of current event.” And that’s exactly what they did. They appealed to both the working man and woman, who (on the whole) could not read or write, but understood the visual images; and the educated middle-classes who appreciated the moral lessons and comments. It was important for a screever to catch the eye of the ‘well to do’ and in turn attract the pennies.

The term SCREEVER was used in Walt Disney’s film “Mary Poppins,” in 1964, to describe BERT as a pavement artist. It was also used by George Orwell in his 1933 book “Down & Out in Paris & London.”   

In the 1950’s there was a ‘heated debate’ in the British Parliament as to whether ‘SCREEVERS’ should be regarded as ‘BEGGARS.’    

Written & researched by Philip Battle.

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Born Charles Robert Redford, Jr. (August 18, 1936), and better known as Robert Redford, an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival.

ROBERT REDFORD & Paul Newman in "Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid" (1969)

Redford was born in Santa Monica, California, he dreamed of being an artist, so at the age of 19, in 1955, he hitchhiked to New York and from there made his way to Paris where he hung out for 18 months with politically active artists and students. He did pavement art chalk drawings directly onto the pavements for tourists to throw him coins.

Robert Redford was interviewed in The New Zealand Herald by Peter Calder; 25th June 2011…….and was asked this question:

‘You nearly became an artist and I know that you ended up in Paris and Florence in the 50s drawing on pavements. Did that time in Europe make a big contribution to the kind of person you became?’

“It absolutely was a huge change in my life. I had been kicked out of school – I was never a good student, because my mind was always outside the window; I wanted to be out in the world. Anyway, I was asked to leave and I saved enough money to last me for a year and I would travel in different countries and learn about other cultures. In doing that, I realised how little I knew about my own country. I would get challenged by students in France about US policies and I didn’t have answers for them. I was sort of humiliated. And I began to look at my country from other countries’ points of view and so when I returned a year later and landed in New York I had a much broader view of the US, the positives and the negatives.”

United Press photo (New York) Pavement artist in Paris taken on 8th May 1955

Pavement art became a popular activity after World War II with an influx of ex-service-men taking to the streets in both London and Paris. They would often display their war-time medals alongside their pavement chalking’s. This would generate a great deal of sympathy amongst the general public and so attract more pennies.

BANKSY at The Sundance Film Festival 2010 Photo by: REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

Redford still has an interest in streeet art and in 2010, a skier looks over a piece of art on a wall during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah January 22, 2010. The gathering, backed by Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute for film, a U.S. event for movies made outside Hollywood’s major studios.

BANKSY at The Sundance Film Festival 2010. Photo by REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

The Sundance Film Festival was set-up by Redford’s company WILDWOOD In 1978.  It’s currently the largest independent cinema festival of it’s kind in the United States. In 2010, it attracted the attentions of another kind of street art: Graffiti artist, BANKSY!

Written & researched by Philip Battle.

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With illustrations by Ernest H. Shepard.

The Pavement Artist of Sycamore Square: page-12

The Pavement Artist of Sycamore Square: page-13

From the book Sycamore Square and other Verses by Jan Struther. Illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard. Published by Methuen & Co. Ltd, London 1932.

Jan Struther was the great-aunt of Ian Maxtone Graham, former co-executive producer of The Simpsons.

Researched by Philip Battle. Reproductions from my own collection and first edition of “Sycamore Square and other Verses.”

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Written & researched by Philip Battle.

Walter Geikie is best known for his drawing and print-making. Born in Edinburgh, he was rendered deaf and dumb as a two-year old. He studied at the Trustees’ Academy where he was taught by Andrew Wilson. Geikie’s scenes of Scottish life can be humorous or satirical; equally his sympathy for the working class is evident in his work.

The Youthful Artist by Walter Geikie (1841) © Trustees of the British Museum

This Illustration shows two men sitting outside a house, one resting his chin on his crossed arms, watching a small boy drawing a mounted soldier on the ground with a chalk.

During the 18^th and 19^th century, child pavement artists, where a common sight in all the major cities of the British Isles.

Talented Screevers; children no more than street urchins, and as young as 5 years of age, would frequent the pavements around the docks and alehouses of cities like Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and London; with the aim of ‘relieving the street passengers’ of a penny or two. Sailors and tourists of the day, people with disposable income would often oblige. Life was hard, and if caught by the Peelers (Police) they were often beaten up, thrown into prison and then off to the horrors of the Workhouse.

The Youthful Artist-1841 (detail) Etching on chine collé © Trustees of the British Museum

The ‘Little Drawers’ where often sent out by their parents to offset the grinding poverty. Sometimes, returning home with bulging pockets full of pennies, and, on many occasions, the families only source of wealth & income. They would go out in two’s and three’s so as to act as ‘lookout’ for the Peelers.

Some child pavement artists, like Liverpool’s James Carling managed to eke out a reasonable living from the trade, and went on to be successful artists; others just fell by the wayside.

FRONT PIECE: “Etchings Illustrative of Scottish Character and Scenery” 1841

This drawing was originally published in a book of illustrations “Etchings Illustrative of Scottish Character and Scenery” in 1841. 4 years after Geikie’s death in 1837.  So it’s safe to say that the etching was made sometime during the 1820’s/ 1830’s although I have no precise date as yet.

Originals prints are currently held by The British Museum.

With reference material from the British Museum.

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Written by Philip Battle.

You have to be careful if you make a statement about history, that you have the source material, reference and dates to back it up. Putting a statement in print (or in a blog) that has very little bases in fact will always come back to haunt you. One of the reasons I started this blog was to dispel some common myths about pavement art.

One of those magical myths is that the art-form all but ‘died out’ during both the world wars. IT DIDN’T!

Postcard published by The Photochorom Co. Ltd (cir. 1915)

World War I

Back in the 18^th and 19^th century, pavement artists (Screevers) had to compete with a myriad of  dancing bears, street potters, Irish girl gypsy dancers, puzzle men and all manner of street entertainers, vagabonds, singers, urchins and con-merchants, all vying to ‘lighten the load’ of the foot passenger.  Through thick & thin; of all the ‘street-arts’ that crowded the Victorian pavements, the Screevers were kings. In their favour, they rarely begged or asked people directly for money and were mostly silent in their work. On the whole, the authorities in Britain where fairly tolerant towards the pavement artist. The only request from the police is that they didn’t block the public highway and cleaned their pitch at the end of the day. Although still officially classed as beggars, they would be arrested, and even beaten up from time to time. An enlightened and tolerant attitude in certain parts of the capital, ensured that pavement art survived through the good times and the bad. By 1911, it was estimated that over 500 artists where making a full-time living on the streets of London alone.

Pavement Art continued to thrive unabated, during both World Wars.

By 1913 and in the lead up to the First World War, The suffragettes had discovered the benefits screeving to further their ‘Votes for Women’ campaign (Related blog!). Pavement artists had become popular tourist attractions around London and became the subjects of postcard publications.

Postcard published by Judges Ltd., Hastings, East Sussex (cir. 1914)

Screeving by Night!

War with Germany was declared on the 28th July 1914. Two weeks prior to the declaration and postmarked 11th July 1914 at 2.15pm, night screever ‘BERT’ sent the above postcard to his friend, Fred Bruce of Victoria Road, Bristol. He writes; “Dear Fred, I have taken a stand on the embankment doing my art. My photo is on the other side….Bert.”   In this famous photo taken by Fred Judge, you can see Bert, sat under a street lamp on the Thames Embankment at night. Screeving by night was a popular activity and many artists would light their own pitch using candles or oil lamps. This was outlawed by the summer of 1916 due to the blackout orders, following German Zeppelin air raids over London.

This charming insight to Night Screeving was published on 1^st August 1916:

As HAS been before remarked, the only way in which the war has affected the London pavement artist, beyond to a certain extent changing the character of his pictures, is in the matter of his night exhibitions. Not a great many artists, at any time, it is true, ever resorted to this expedient. One of the great advantages of the calling, and indeed its prime attraction, is the fact that when therein employed a man is his own master. He goes to work when he pleases and “knocks off” when he pleases. And so pavement artists are not, as a body, accustomed to work long hours. It is all a matter of patronage. Sometimes when some public function brings a crowd past his pitch, trade will be brisk; at other times, when some public function draws the crowd another way, trade will be slow, and the circle of delicate green with “Thank You” scrolled around it, will long remain empty save for the “penny of encouragement.”

But about night exhibitions. It has been said that they were not common, and that is true enough: but when they did occur, with their row of lighted candles standing in bottles of all shapes and sizes, they constituted a notable attraction. Even the candles by themselves would be undoubtedly deserving of patronage. Lighted candles are always cheerful things, but who could resist a row of them on the pavement at night, throwing strange shadows on the passer-by. It is all over for the present, however. The lighting orders have put a stop to it and the pavement artist does not now exhibit at night.

There was, however, one pavement artist in London who never exhibited at any other time than at night. He never troubled about candles. He would get near an arc light, and it might seem at first that it was the shading of the arc light that caused him to cease from his labours, for he has for some time ceased from them. Evidence, however, flows in from many quarters to show that he had other reasons. Now, he was a very unusual pavement artist. Indeed, it is a question whether any old-established pavement artist would admit that he was one. He absolutely departed from all tradition. Most pavement artists, for instance, those at any rate with any settled position, have a dignified number of summers and winters go by: this one could not have seen many more than twelve or thirteen all told. Then he never drew the same picture twice, a shameless departure. He, moreover, always drew as if he just could not help it. It mattered nothing to him whether people looked on or not, or whether they could see or not: once he got into a real battle picture, everything else and everybody was forgotten. With a strange certainty of touch, he outlined horse and man and gun, shells bursting all around, and hilltops wreathed in smoke. His hand could not move fast enough for him. His eyes sparkled, and all the time he murmured to himself the astonishing history of it all. “And then ‘e sez, Charge! And they charges.” And sure enough they are charging, all of them.

It was not a finished picture. The real pavement artist, ever a critic of a brother’s work, could have pointed to a hundred shortcomings, but no one with a discerning eye for the spark of genius would have passed it by. Night after night, at one time, at the same street corner, under the same lamp, he would make his appearance, brush away, with every sign of impatience, any remains of the work of the night before, and then, without any copy or outward inspiration of any kind, plunge straightway into the making of some great masterpiece. And now, maybe, it is a naval battle—dreadnoughts, cruisers, torpedo boats: submarines on the surface making cautious reconnaissance, and submarines below the surface in the act of torpedoing battleships. Great doings above water, shells again bursting everywhere, ships sinking at extravagant angles, all accompanied by the same whispered commentary. “An’ Jellyco, ‘e sez. At ‘em lads, again! An’ they goes at ‘em again accordin’.”

And now for the evidence that it was not the shading of the arc light that stopped him. In the first place, he had made his appearance for quite some time after the lights were shaded. His demeanour, moreover, at all times showed that so long as he had light to draw by, he did not care whether anyone could see his work or not. Finally, when the evenings began to draw out, even when summertime came in and it was light up to 10 o’ clock, he did not come. One moonlight night not long ago, however, afforded the explanation. A small, familiar figure, dressed with strange, unwonted neatness, appeared round the corner by the arc light. He had a sketchbook under one arm, and a drawing board under the other, and as he paused irresolutely and looked down on the scene of so many wonderful efforts. Suddenly, without any warning, the drawing board and the sketchbook were placed against the wall. With eager haste he produced from his pocket a piece of chalk, and was just kneeling down, evidently to perpetrate something priceless, when, in a moment, all was changed. Resolutely the chalk was replaced, the drawing board and sketchbook taken up, and without one single backward look he walked away, and disappeared into the darkness.

Published in The Christian Science Monitor: 1^st August 1916.

Postcard published by TUCK & Sons, London (cir. 1917)

The First World War ended on the 11th November 1918 and the postcard above of a pavement artist outside the Tower of London was published in 1917 and posted in 1918, just one month before the end of the war. It was the very last postcard to be published featuring The Screevers of World War I.

I’ll be doing a follow-up to this blog on the Screevers of World War II shortly.

Research and source material by Philip Battle

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