Andrew King 1932
Recently, I was introduced to the work of Andrew King, a Canadian graphic artist, printer, and newspaper editor whose work spanned the first half of the 20th century. In some ways though, beginning in 1912, this is actually more a story of happenstance. Andrew King and his small local newspaper were about to experience a restructuring that would not only transform his modest regional company, but the Canadian graphic arts and show poster industry as well.
Enterprise Show Print offices, Rouleau, Saskatchewan. 1910s.
Rouleau, a Canadian prairie town of 800, had one weekly newspaper, The Rouleau Enterprise, owned and published by Andrew King. As remote as this little hamlet may have seemed, it was also situated on the Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie “Soo Line” Railway, which saw four passenger trains on its timetable each and every day. As a result, this community had no shortage of connections to the rest of North America.
Rouleau, Saskatchewan 1910s. (Soo Line Station – lower right)
Happenings via Happenstance
“An advance agent of a theatrical company arrived in town to book the public hall and post advertising matter announcing its appearance. I had never seen the man before, or even heard of his company which was an excellent one out of Chicago.” Andrew King explains in his 1970 autobiography, Pen, Paper, & Printing Ink.
Unfortunately for the agent, his Chicago office neglected to ship the advertising posters in time, and the railway also failed in its usual prompt express service. The agent was perplexed as to why there wasn’t a poster printing company somewhere in that part of Canada who could deliver a prompt and convenient service.
Jestingly, Andrew King said, “What about starting one here?”
The agent replied, “Why not?!”
This seemingly casual decision on the part of both these men would directly influence Canada’s role in poster and graphic arts history. Soon, and like no other printer in Canada, Andrew King’s “Enterprise Show Print” (and later “King Show Print”) was a thriving source of circus, music, and events posters for most of the first half of the past century. (Today, the only shop whose work and influence I can compare to King’s work is Hatch Show Print, out of Nashville, Tennessee.)
Carving a New Way
At the time, most artwork was printed using the expensive and time-consuming lithography process. The majority of work out of King’s shop was more economical, though, and used a hand-carved woodblock technique. In fact (and unusually), King used the woodblocks in multiple color layers, and they were so fast at it they could turn out a carving in 2 to 3 hours. Prior to Enterprise Show Print’s creation, King carved and whittled wood as a hobby which undoubtedly contributed to his familiarity and comfort with the process his new business used.
Example of carved wood block type.
Andrew King at press with sons Stirling and Bill in background 1950s.
Hand-carved wood blocks produced for each of the yellow, red and blue inks used in the poster card below.
Whether it was fate, dumb luck or pure enterprise, had King been located in a less remote location with more access to kindred craftspeople, perhaps he would have considered a less rudimentary, hands-on process. This prairie mentality of “Roll up your sleeves and make it work” can be found as a constant thread throughout King’s legacy.
Carved blue outline level wood printing block.
Finished poster using wood block above.
Yet, when reflecting on his career in 1973, King confessed, “…we did not realize our pictorial wood block poster work was so unique. To us the production of such work was simply an ordinary routine.”
Had that agent from Chicago received his advertising materials in the time frame he expected, had it not been in Andrew King’s Rouleau Enterprise office, and finally, had King not playfully but impulsively responded with his reflex “What about starting one here?” comment, Canada might not have secured its place in this category show print poster history. Enterprise Show Print eventually became the only poster printing plant of its kind in Canada.
Setting up layout for wood block printing at Enterprise Show Print.
Pioneer Days
A look at Andrew King’s career will show that it was filled with circumstances where he simply proceeded along a path of intuitive sensibility. “Looking back to those pioneer days when I was striving to expand the market I had discovered by a stroke of luck, I realize now that my inexperience had much to do with my entry into a highly specialized field of printing, already covered by large competitive companies. I had discarded my first belief that a small town was no place to initiate such a business.”
The finished project.
King soon found that the novelty of a full fledged, professionally capable poster printing plant working out of such a seemingly remote location as Rouleau actually generated its own valuable publicity. “Had Enterprise Show Print been set up in Regina, Moose Jaw, or Saskatoon (much larger populations and markets), it would have been considered a routine matter without creating much publicity.”
Bill King displays finished circus poster late 1940s.
The same basic design pictured above.
The small town often caught managers and visitors off guard. For instance, J. Alex Sloan of Sloan’s Championship Auto Racing in Chicago, prepared to send Art Swenson, their new PR manager to the King’s plant for the first time. “Now when that train stops there and you get off, don’t get back on the train thinking you have gotten off at the wrong town. If the sign on the railway station reads “Rouleau”, you are at the right place. no matter how small it looks to you. The town is a little place with only a one-block business section, sitting out on the flat prairie, but even though it’s small, that’s where they print the biggest date figures in Canada and those are what we want.”
Eventually the business became a family concern, and his sons Bill and Stirling ultimately became a part of the business. Bill was a printer and Stirling, a writer, but all three of them carved the wood block designs.
Andrew King and sons with employees in front of the Estevan Mercury offices – late 1940s.
Show Poster On the Road
By 1944, the newspaper aspect of the company was struggling but Enterprise Show Print was booming. King sold the newspaper and moved the business to Estevan, a larger community in southeastern Saskatchewan which was also a designated stop on the Soo Line Railway. He purchased the town’s Estevan Mercury newspaper and re-named the poster company King Show Print. Stirling King managed the newspaper side, and Bill oversaw the poster and commercial printing business.
Andrew King at work at King Show Print in Estevan 1950s.
Around this time, King also began to introduce different techniques other than woodblock into other types of circus poster production. They had employed silkscreen printers and also offered hand-sewn prize ribbons for fairs. The ribbons, still hand sewn by Godman Printing in Estevan, are some of the only hand sewn prize ribbons in North America. In some cases, zinc plates were used to incorporate small photographic details, and he also attached metal outlines onto the woodblocks which integrated crisp and bolder edges to the poster designs.
Ribbon example.
A zinc plate used to reproduce screened photography.
After retiring in 1968, Andrew King released his autobiographical history of the Canadian journalism and printing industries, Pen, Paper & Printing Ink in 1970. In 1988, the Dunlop Gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan held the only retrospective of his work, which they called “The Big Show.”
Andrew and his wife Mabel, 1954.
King’s history of Canadian printing and publishing (1970), his book on Estevan (1967), and the 1987 catalog for the Dunlop Gallery retrospective exhibit.
King’s work still retains a presence around the city in the Estevan Museum, the Conklin Museum, and in the University of Toronto’s Massey College. Scores of an untold amount private circus poster lovers around North America cherish their King Show Print pieces. As a testament to the modest print shop’s effectiveness, King’s work has even been found in the United States as far south as Florida and Texas. Seems to me that the Andrew King story deserves re-examination, as well as coming up a rung or two on the graphic arts history ladder…
Probably my favorite design produced by King’s shop. Early 1940s by Enterprise Show Print.
!939 Enterprise Show Print catalog and page.
Different show cards using common background plates.
Not a typical image from either Enterprise OR King Show Print files – a surprisingly conventional and generic “cartoony” image.
The 1988 Dunlop Gallery retrospective of King’s career used an existing design of the studio’s work as the promotional poster for the exhibit.
Finally, I owe endless thanks to Joel Derksen and Bonne Zabolotney for introducing me to the world of Andrew King, as well as providing guidance and support for helping to responsibly co
nstruct this article. Thanks too, are extended to the Dunlop and Estevan Galleries, as well as the entire King family.