Brian Coppola :: Late 19th/Early-to-Mid 20th C cartoonists & illustrators

Rowntree's Chocolate (advert) c. 1931 by John Millar Watt

Artist: John MIllar Watt (All)

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Rowntree's Chocolate (advert) c. 1931 by John Millar Watt Comic Art

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Artwork Details

Title:	Rowntree's Chocolate (advert) c. 1931 by John Millar Watt
Artist:	John MIllar Watt (All)
Media Type:	Pen and Ink
Art Type:	Illustration
For Sale Status:	NFS
Views:	128
Likes on CAF:	0 1
Comments:	0
Added to Site:	1/8/2025
Comic Art Archive:

Description

Rowntree's Chocolate (advert) c. 1931
John Millar Watt (1895-1975)
6.25 x 14.75 in., ink on board

Watt was apprenticed to an advertising agency while attending evening classes at the Westminster School of Art. His apprenticeship was interrupted in 1915 by World War I. After being discharged, he studied briefly at Slade School of Art before returning to advertising work.

This drawing is my third example from an advertising campaign for well-known British chocolate maker "Rowntree�s Chocolate," which routinely identified the color of its confections with the skin tones of Black people, particularly young girls, or here with blackface characters during the minstrel revival in the 1930s. Although not identified by name, the drawings may well represent Alexander & Mose, blackface radio show minstrels Billy Bennett and Albert Whalen, from the US, who were popular at this time.

These depictions did not improve (see: the "Honeybunch" campaign, in the late 1940s and early 1950s).

Although now owned by Nestle, the history of Rowntree's is that of a business selling 'commodities of empire,' with its production and manufacturing derived from colonial indenture, with enslaved and/or unfree workers recruited from India and Southeast Asia to work on plantations in the Caribbean and West Africa.

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	Brian Coppola Premium Gallery Owner
Joined:	March 2009
Last Login:	January 2026
Country:	UNITED STATES
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