‘Our true intent is all for your delight’: Butlin’s archives feature in major national exhibition

We are delighted to announce that several pieces from the Butlin’s Heritage Collection at HAT have been shared with the public as part of a major new exhibition. The Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts (SCVA) in Norwich selected Butlin’s material to feature in their ‘Art Deco by the Sea’ show which explores how the Art Deco style shaped the modern seaside experience during the interwar period.

The striking exhibits chosen include an original full-size 1937 LNER railway poster (‘Butlin's Holiday Camp Skegness - It's quicker by rail’), examples of Butlin’s iconic pin badges (such as the Founder badge, 1939, on the left) and publicity brochures. As seaside historian Dr Kathryn Ferry has noted Butlin’s made a significant contribution to the development of the British seaside experience from the mid-1930s: The Holiday setting was all important and Billy Butlin wanted his campers to feel like they were entering a different world…With the visual reference points of the age in mind – art deco, Holywood movies and modernism – the communal buildings surrounding Butlin’s showcase pools were clean and streamlined. Built of steel, glass and concrete, these huge flat-roofed boxes acknowledged the key elements of international modernism but were not so cutting edge that they intimidated guests. Their design was down to Billy Butlin himself (‘The Nation’s Host: Butlin’s and the story of the British seaside’, K. Ferry, 2016, p.56). Butlin’s archive material from HAT also features in the beautifully produced ‘Art Deco by the Sea’ book/catalogue which accompanies the exhibition.


Chalets, flowers and putting, 1938

‘Art Deco by the Sea’ is the first major design exhibition to examine British coastal culture in the 1920s-30s and show how the British seaside developed in the new age of mass tourism. Featuring around 130 works in total, drawn from various collections, the exhibit celebrates iconic examples of seaside architecture and also explores the amusements, fashion and transport of the period. The Sainsbury Centre is one of the country’s premier university art galleries and a major centre for the study and preservation of art. The SCVA galleries form the largest climate-controlled exhibition space in Eastern England.


Double page view of Skegness camp, 1938

For the latest on the Art Deco by the Sea exhibition see: https://www.sainsburycentre.ac.uk/whats-on/art-deco-by-the-sea-exhibition/

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