Traveller’s Joy – The Key To The Countryside – Beautiful Shell Adverts From The Mid-1950s

From the 1920s and into the 1950s the Shell Oil Company produced some wonderful advertising posters and some said, the most beautiful the country has ever seen.

1954: Arranged and painted by Edith and Rowland Hilder

Looking at these examples from the mid-fifties it’s difficult to argue. It was a different time and the adverts, mostly shown in up-market magazines such as Country Life, show us a view of Britain as a lost rural idyl while, somewhat ironically, promoting not only petrol and oil but motoring in general and where it could take you. It was only Shell petrol and diesel that could give you the exhilarating pleasure and joyous freedom of the countryside.

h/t: flashbak

1954, illustrated by Edith and Rowland Hilder

1955: Painted by Maurice Wilson in collaboration with Rowland Hilder

1955: Painted by Maurice Wilson in collaboration with Rowland Hilder

1955: Painted by Maurice Wilson in collaboration with Rowland Hilder

1956: Painted by Tristram Hillier

1956: Painted by Tristram Hillier

1956: Painted by Tristram Hillier

1956: Painted by Tristram Hillier

1959: Painted by Barbara Jones

Shell Guide to May Lanes, 1954, illustrated by Rowland Hilder

The Key to the Countryside Wildfowl – painted by Maurice Wilson in collaboration with Rowland Hilder

Shell Nature Studies Moors