THE GOLDEN YEARS OF MATCHBOX ART
BY ROY HUXLEY ISBN: 9781906592684 RED KITE PUBLICATIONS
When I started in this hobby there were two companies whose models I built - Airfix & Matchbox. I found myself preferring Matchbox kits because they had plastic in different colours, came in a lovely box with a window in the back, the tanks came with a base and, of course, the eye-catching box artwork with a bit of history included. Some prefer the work by Roy Cross for Airfix, but I was always drawn to Roy Huxley of Matchbox.
When I first heard about this book, I immediately placed a pre-order. It is the first time that a catalogue of work by Roy Huxley has been published and comes as a hardback volume spanning 128 pages of glorious Matchbox art spanning aircraft, ships, military vehicles and cars. Printed in a large 30cm x 28cm format, this is a quality publication with the photo reproduction throughout being superb albeit with one niggle. Published by Red Kite (details below), the first hundred copies were signed by Mr Huxley and I was fortunate enough to acquire number 35 out of this first 100. When you initially open this book, you will be surprised to find that there is no table of contents. It has been written by Mr Huxley and contains an introduction which details his career up to his time with Matchbox, then the Matchbox years, and a brief history of life after Matchbox. It then launches into the artwork, starting with the Purple, Orange, Red, Brown & Green aircraft ranges (that is the twocolour, then three-colour in small, medium & large boxes, ending with the large 3-colour 1/32nd range to Matchbox afficionados) moving onto airliners & ships. We then get the Purple range of Military Vehicles and conclude with the classic cars.
The two-page spreads disappointed me because, as they have been reproduced spanning two pages, we lose the effect by the spine of the book splitting them. Although it appears on the cover, the Lancaster artwork has been reproduced over two pages and is affected by this. Similarly, the Flower-Class Corvette, USS Indianapolis and the Handley Page Victor are (in my opinion) diminished by this approach. I struggle to understand why they have been presented in this way as they would have been far better being done as foldouts or separate colour plates.
The work is presented in smaller pictures of each range per page but with some given a full-page reproduction with notes by Roy Huxley. I like this approach, even if some of his favourites do not match mine! Thankfully, the Zero gets the full-page treatment and it would have to be a very strange schoolboy in 1974 to have not been impressed with the exploding & sinking ships on that one. There are some fantastic facts and snippets of information here. We find out that most of the original artwork was either lost or stolen. The author informs us of his favourite artworks and we also learn why that changed over time in different boxings. In some markets there were objections to explosions, aircraft being shot down, swastikas and even multiple machines shown on the boxtops. Mr Huxley gives us his thoughts on these and makes his views quite clear. In these pages, I also discovered that some of my favourite boxart (the SD.Kfz.11 with Pak 40, Morris Quad & 17 Pounder, Wespe, ME. 410) was not done by Mr Huxley but by two other Matchbox artists, Ross Wardle & Doug Post. I must admit that my favourite is the Flower Class Corvette as I have loved that picture ever since I first saw this enormous box in 1979 in Conways in Keighley for the equally enormous price of £25.