Model helpers required

Time to root around your attic…

The Royal Air Force Museum has launched an appeal aimed at fans of smaller aircraft than they usually deal with.

The museum will be launching a signature exhibition commemorating and celebrating that great national institution the Airfix model next summer, and are appealing for help from enthusiasts and former workers. The exhibition will chart the history of Airfix by displaying original box art as well as the company’s most popular models from days gone by in the Museum’s Art Gallery. It will then transfer to the RAF Museum Cosford in time for the 75^th anniversary of Airfix’s foundation in 2014.

 An important part of the exhibition will be the examination of how Airfix has permeated the social fabric of the United Kingdom and how it has influenced the leisure activities of generations of young men and women since the company’s foundation. Accordingly, the Royal Air Force Museum is launching an appeal to ask members of the public who have any original paintings which were produced as artwork for packaging. The Museum would also be interested in hearing about models from 1950s, 60s and 70s with their original packaging.

Andrew Cormack Keeper of Visual Arts, Medals and Uniforms at the Royal Air Force Museum and Curator of the Airfix Exhibition states: ‘Over the last 9 months I have had the pleasure of working closely with the team at Airfix, whilst curating this exhibition. Although the Museum does have a plethora of materials to draw upon, it was common practice when staff retired from Airfix for them to be awarded original artwork as a thank you from the team.

This means that in terms of the proposed exhibition there are a couple of minor gaps in the artwork we would like to hang. These include artwork from the Historical Personalities series, the Sailing Ships series and Airfix’s military vehicles series during the 1950s and 60s including the work of Roy Cross and Michael Turner. And although we will doubtless show some superb models, it would be interesting, if possible, to find any models that still survive that were made by young children also from this period. After all, the pleasure of making a kit experienced by an eight year old – the majority of purchasers in the 1960s – was more about imagination and inspiration, perhaps even emulation, than it was accuracy.

If anyone owns original Airfix paintings or models from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s and would like to offer to lend their items to be displayed they can contact Andrew by calling 020 8205 2266 or by emailing him at fine-arts@rafmuseum.org .’