Theyre Lee-Elliott

{{Short description|English artist (1903–1998)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2020}}

{{EngvarB|date=February 2020}}

{{Infobox artist

|name = Theyre Lee-Elliott

|image = Theyre Lee-Elliott.png

|image_size = 250

|caption = With projections of his Speedbird and Airmail icons. The portrait was taken in his thirties by Gordon Anthony.{{citation |url=http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portraitLarge/mw174510/Theyre-Lee-Elliott?LinkID=mp103632&role=sit&rNo=0 |publisher=National Portrait Gallery |year=2015 |title=Theyre Lee-Elliott}}

|birth_name = David Lee Theyre Elliott

|birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1903|5|28}}

|birth_place = Lewes, England

|death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1988|12|24|1903|5|28}}

|death_place = Chelsea, England

|field = book covers, posters, logos, scenery, ballet paintings, religious paintings

|education = {{unbulleted list|Winchester College|Magdalene College, Cambridge|Central School of Art and Design|Slade School of Fine Art}}

|movement = Art Deco, Modernism

|works =

{{unbulleted list

| Speedbird (1932)

| Paintings of the Ballet (1947)

| Crucified tree form – The Agony (1959)

}}

}}

Theyre Lee-Elliott (28 May 1903 – 24 December 1988) was an English artist who created notable Art Deco logos such as the Speedbird and painted the ballet and religious art.

He was born David Lee Theyre Elliott in 1903 in Lewes. He was educated at Winchester and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read theology but was a high jump champion, won a Blue for lawn tennis and represented England at table tennis.

He graduated in 1925 and then spent two years at the Central School of Art and Design followed by the Slade School of Fine Art. He then worked as a commercial artist and his work on book-jackets included Dodsworth, A Farewell to Arms and Eric Linklater's Juan in America. He was a pioneer of informational posters which presented statistics in graphical form{{citation |title=Design: GPO Posters |author=Paul Rennie |isbn=9781851495962 |year=2011 |publisher=Antique Collectors' Club |quote=Lee Elliott was a pioneer of modernist information graphics}} and created notable Art Deco logos including Imperial Airways' Speedbird and the Post Office's symbols for air mail and the telephone.{{citation |title=The Decorative Arts of the Forties and Fifties |author=Bevis Hillier |publisher=Crown |year=1975}} The Speedbird was designed in 1932 and its appearance was influenced by the avant-garde work of Edward McKnight Kauffer, echoing Kauffer's angular bird forms in his 1918 poster for the Daily Herald.{{citation |pages=128–129 |title=World History of Design |chapter=Great Britain 1918–1939 |author=Victor Margolin |publisher=Bloomsbury |year=2015 |isbn=9781472569288}} Other clients during this period included the tailor Austin Reed.{{citation |journal=Fashion Theory |volume=9 |issue=1 |year=2005 |title='Virility in Design': Advertising Austin Reed and the "New Tailoring" during the Interwar Period in Britain |doi=10.2752/136270405778051419 |author=Paul Joblinga |pages=57–83|s2cid=194092391 }}

He also worked on the scenery at Sadler's Wells Theatre and painted the ballet dancers there. His work there made him friends with the dancers and musical community. The paintings were exhibited at the theatre then San Francisco and Hollywood and were published as Paintings of the Ballet in 1947. In October of that year, he witnessed the marriage of conductor Constant Lambert and artist Isabel Delmer.{{citation |page=365 |title=Constant Lambert: Beyond the Rio Grande |author=Stephen Lloyd |year=2014 |publisher=Boydell & Brewer |isbn=9781843838982}}

After an illness in the 1950s, he produced religious art such as The Agony{{citation |url=https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/crucified-tree-form-the-agony-42938 |title=Crucified Tree Form (The Agony) |work=Art UK }} and a selection was exhibited in Paris in 1965. His final years were spent in Chelsea, where he lived for most of his life.{{citation |url=http://www.sarahcolegrave.co.uk/paintings/d/composition-of-three-dancers/119710 |title=Composition of Three Dancers |publisher=Sarah Colgrave Fine Art}}

File:Daily herald.jpg|Edward McKnight Kauffer's 1917 poster for the Daily Herald may have inspired the Speedbird logo.

File:BOAC Speedbird.svg|Lee-Elliot's Speedbird logo created in 1932 for Imperial Airways

File:Poster declaring fall in infant mortality Wellcome L0038328.jpg|A 1939 poster for the Ministry of Health showing statistical improvement in infant mortality.