Saucy Seaside Postcards in Bournemouth!!

Saucy seaside postcards are not something that you expect to see in a Victorian house perched over a cliff top in Bournemouth.

The exhibition is at the Russell-Cotes art gallery and museum, which also contains very valuable paintings from the early nineteenth to the mid twentieth century.

The postcard display on the second floor, details the work of Bamforth & Co, from the early to late twentieth century. The comic postcards from 1910, with their hand drawn illustrations and comic one-liners, are displayed on four pink yellow and blue beach huts.

The postcards depict the old ideals of a British holiday, with guesthouses, beach attendants and donkeys. The others portray relationships, all from a comic angle. Although they were designed in a different era, they are still able to entertain the young and the old, many of whom giggled their way around the exhibition.

The rest of the museum, which used to be a home to Sir Merton and Lady Russell-Cotes until their deaths in the 1920s, displays the paintings, sculptures and furniture which they collected.

The mixture of exhibits which includes a display of Japanese metal work, are all enjoyable and the situation of the museum is perfect for those walking along the sea front. However the other displays do seem a little out of place in the Victorian building neither complementing nor enhancing the experience of the main exhibition, that of the collection of Sir Merton and Lady Russell-Cotes.

The ‘Secrets of the Saucy Seaside Postcard’ is on display until the end of January.