Sketchbooks

S/GSF/1/1

1943-1972

Geoffrey Fletcher (1923-2004) was an artist and author noted for his illustrations of London and especially for recording details and areas of the city not often documented. Fletcher was born in Bolton on 3 April 1923 and died there on 22 June 2004. He studied at the Slade School of Art and also won a scholarship to study at the British School at Rome. His work appeared in several British newspapers, beginning with the Manchester Guardian in 1950. In 1958, he began working for The Daily Telegraph and for 30 years he contributed drawings and articles to its 'London Day by Day' column, which was collectively written under the pseudonym 'Peterborough'. Fletcher was a keen advocate for conservation and his newspaper illustrations frequently highlighted Georgian and Victorian buildings marked for demolition during London's post-war redevelopment. He was particularly attracted to documenting the streets and buildings of Islington, which featured regularly in his work. Fletcher's first book was 'Town's Eye View' (1960), an introduction to townscape. He wrote and illustrated 18 books about London and his most well known, 'The London Nobody Knows' (1962), was made into a documentary film in 1967. He also published a number of guides to drawing and painting.

15 sketchbooks of various size, covering the 1943-1972 period and containing mostly pen and ink drawings. The first volume was produced by Fletcher during 'pre-Slade' sketching tours in the Lake District, Cheshire and Lancashire in 1943-1944 and the final volume covers a tour of Italy in 1972. The other volumes feature mainly London scenes, although other locations in England and abroad are also depicted, and many of them are accompanied with Fletcher's notes on the buildings being illustrated.

2 boxes

The sketchbooks also contain loose pages.

English

The majority of this material was donated to Islington Libraries by Geoffrey Fletcher during the 1970s. Other items, as identified, were collected by staff at Islington and Finsbury borough libraries. Most of the items collected by library staff were previously placed in other areas of the Local History Centre collections, including the book, pamphlet and news cuttings collections, but were transferred to this collection in 2011.

ARTISTS, WRITERS, DRAWINGS

series