When we were first approached by Paul's agent about publishing a range of football art cards we thought 'What? Football cards! How could they work for us and how would we ever sell them!' We have since learnt about Paul Trevillion's 60 year long career as a sports artist and we soon decided this was well worth a go. Not only is Paul an extremely talented artist, he is rather famous within the world of sport and he has an interesting and impressive history.
In the 1960's Paul became well known for his comic art realism in Roy of the Rovers and is now best known for his cult ‘You Are The Ref’ football feature which appears every Sunday in the Observer and the Guardian online.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/series/you-are-the-ref
We are very lucky that he has produced a collection of line drawings exclusively for Dry Red Press to publish alongside some of his You Are The Ref images. Trevillion is well known for his ability to bring a subject to life and turn a static image into a moving figure on the page, he has been given the title 'The Master of Movement' and you will see why when you look at his work on our greeting cards.
We have published 2 striking ranges:
'Leonardo of Line' (another title given to Paul Trevillion because of his super skills with pen and ink). These cards are a series of 7 line drawings of some of the biggest names in football. All the cards have a football tip and accompanying illustration inside.
'You Are The Ref' which consists of 6 cards with images taken from the famous football feature. These are all colourful images of a situation on the pitch which leads to a refereeing dilemma. Keith Hackett, Former head of Premier League referees and FIFA referee, gives his solution to the dilemma and this is written on the inside of each card.
We have published these cards to coincide with a six month exhibition of Trevillion's sporting art at the National Football Museum in Manchester which launches on 24th June 2016, alongside the official VIP opening of the very first FOOTBALL WALK OF FAME at the museum when 25 greats of international football will be honoured with a bronze plaque featuring a portrait of the footballing legend by the artist, Trevillion. The plaques will be a permanent attraction outside the National Football Museum. President of the museum is Sir Bobby Charlton with Sir Alex Ferguson, Sir Trevor Brooking, Sir Tom Finney (1922-2104) and World Cup ’66 winner Sir Geoff Hurst are the Vice-Presidents.
www.nationalfootballmuseum.com
We are very pleased to be selling The Trevillion Collection at the museum shop on a permanent basis.
Aside from his sports art Paul Trevillion has another unique claim to fame. In 1955 at the age of 21 he was commissioned to paint a portrait of Sir Winston Churchill to celebrate Churchill's 81st birthday. Trevillion met the great man, who liked the portrait so much, he signed it. It is the only one that Churchill ever signed! The original portrait is being unveiled to the public for the first time at the National Football Museum on 3rd May, a 12 page booklet on the story of the painting will be available from the NFM and we are very excited to be attending this unique event. We have also published this historically important portrait as a greeting card!
We will be exhibiting the Trevillion Collection for the first time at the Progressive Greetings Live trade show. Paul Trevillion himself is going to be there, you might recognise him from the distinctive hat he always wears! The exhibition opens on 10th May 2016 for two days at the Business Design Centre in Islington.
www.progressivegreetingslive.com
The cards will also be available to order through our website in early May so do keep an eye out for them!
We are really looking forward to exploring the new market which has been opened up to us as a result of The Trevillion Collection and we are confident that it will be a success!
You can learn more about the artist himself on his official website:
Thank you for reading!
Laura and Kicki