Levin, Richard [Designer and head of BBC television design 1953-1971]

Archive relating to Levin’s design career 1930s-1970s

A large, mainly vintage photographic archive of the design projects of Levin, from innovative work for Castrol and others in the 1930s, through to his design and production work for the BBC, with some manuscript material.

The collection could be divided into groups as follows:

• Richard Levin’s first design/exhibition - Vintage photograph of the stand with accompanying hand-written note to an unnamed correspondent explaining that he started work at the same time as Misha Black at Arundell Clarke Ltd and this design for the British Industries Fair 1930 was a revolutionary piece of design in the field. It was one of his first jobs, and this was his earliest photograph.
• Collection of approx. 50 vintage photographs of designs by Levin including an early adaptation of Surreal imagery for a Regent Street window display, most images were used in articles in the press at the time [see item 5].
• Levin’s designs for the new offices of Castrol/Wakefield and for their stand at the Motor show, with a few press cuttings commenting on the displays - A collection of 35 vintage photographs.
• 1930’s scrap book of exhibition design work and other images including work for Bakelite and Castrol and Viyella, cuttings and original vintage photographs, some loosely inserted.
• 1936/37 Paris Exhibition - 12 photographs of the location, stand and exhibition.
• Trianon bar on the Pullman coach of the Golden Arrow train, 1930/40. - 3 vintage photographs.
• Exhibition of 1944 held in the bombed - out site of John Lewis in Oxford Street and designed by Levin for the Ministry of Information - 28 vintage photographs.
• Prague Radio Exhibition, 1947 - 4 photographs of the exhibition stand.
• The Festival of Britain, 1951, including fashion, with a printed sheet re. the travelling exhibition crediting Levin as the chief designer - 18 photographs.
• Exhibitions relating to the BBC 1930s - 1950s - 30 various vintage photographs.
• BBC stands at Radio-Olympia 1933-1951, including a rare group from the 1939 show which was only open for 1 hour due to the outbreak of war - 31 vintage photographs.
• Levin’s 1953 design for the current affairs programme Joan Gilbert’s Diary, one vintage photograph with his manuscript note attached stating that it was the first ‘contemporary’ design for a current affairs programme on British Television.
• Large scrap book of press cuttings, vintage photographs and printed artwork 1953-1962, chronicling Levin’s work in design at the BBC, including photographs of various parties and receptions, cuttings about his design ethos and the BBC design team in general WITH a further album mainly of cuttings relating to material 1963-1968.
• 2 vintage colour photographs of HRH the Queen, taken at Buckingham Palace in 1967 at the launch of the first colour television broadcast, with 10 other related images of Levin accompanying the Queen and a colour contact sheet of HRH, of 20 images taken at the Palace during the first colour broadcast, and 2 images of Levin with the Queen Mother and one of him with Armstrong-Jones.
• Approx. 20 sheets of vintage colour contact prints including Miss World 1970s, Eurovision Song contest and other events.
• Fourteen large production sheets of vintage photographs, including camera and sound equipment.
• Small group of papers related to Levin’s letter to Philips electrical asking about the possibility of making a larger - wide screen television as opposed to the standard 4:3 aspect screen.
• Large group of vintage colour negatives some captured from TV screens, some on location, including Miss World 1970-1974, Eurovision Song Contest, Ivor Novello awards, SFTA [Society of Film and Television - BAFTA].
• Large group of colour and black and white 35 mm contact sheets, including stage performances, Lulu and other, family and friends.
• Forty large sheets of vintage photographs along with extra images of set designs, used for the production of Richard Levin’s book ‘Television by Design’. There are excellent images of many sets including “Quatermass and the Pit”, Historical sets, Contemporary chat show sets etc. WITH Levin’s copy of the book.
• Levin at work and around the BBC - A group 19 photographs, one very large.
• Collection of material relating to Levin, including pamphlets, photographs, and original copy of his BBC logo as a ‘stick on’ label.
• An extensive scrap book of approx. 46 letters received by Levin on his retirement from the BBC, from TV and film studios around the world. The letters all express a huge debt of gratitude that the TV stations and designers around the world owed to Levin and his pioneering work. The front cover with a group photograph up a spiral staircase of delegates to a TV design conference, many of whose letters are within. Correspondents include Australia, CBS, Thames, ATV, Denmark, Poland, Switzerland, Japan, etc.
• Five albums of negatives of family and friends.

Richard Levin, was head of design for BBC Television from 1953 to 1971, and thus the individual who set the visual stamp on the service throughout its great period of expansion and innovation, including the switch from black-and-white to colour in 1967-69. Television "design" in those days meant everything from the scenery for a grand opera to the seating plan for a panel game or the graphics illustrating a plain man's guide to the economy. It could be sinister Martian creatures in a Quatermass serial or a new set for the teenage pop show, Six-Five Special, to help young viewers feel a part of the proceedings rather than merely spectators.

From the age of seven, when he was given a box camera, the young Levin was devoted to photography. He left Clayesmore public school at 17 to become a trainee with Gaumont-British Films. There he was attracted to the design side, rose to be an assistant art director and, after studying at the Slade and in Paris, entered the world of industrial and exhibition design, including, prophetically, a stint with the pre-war television service at Alexandra Palace. During the war, he worked for the Air Ministry as a camouflage officer and for the Ministry of Information as an exhibition designer. For the 1951 Festival of Britain he designed the travelling exhibition The Land, which earned him an OBE. Two years later, just as television was taking off, he got the opportunity to rejoin the BBC at the top. Though "design" embraced every aspect of television output, it was in drama, variety and big spectacles that it was most noticed. Levin found that painted scenery flats were still the norm. In the cramped little studios of Alexandra Palace, there had been no alternative, but now Lime Grove and Riverside were available there was no need for such two-dimensional illusion. He set about giving plays, especially, three- dimensional sets, in which the camera could move about as a privileged observer. In 1960, he published a book, Television By Design, in which he pointed out that the designer's talents existed to serve the needs of the writer and director. For the majority of these clients, and certainly most viewers, that meant absolute realism.

He set up specialist photographic and graphics units, personally designed the BBC logo and conducted experiments with a widescreen format. Michael Barry, then head of drama, was enthusiastic but, with colour on the horizon, there was no money to pursue the project. Another of Levin's sidelines, rather unusual in a BBC department head, was to always carry his camera with him and take portraits of all the great and famous who came to the studios. When he finally retired from broadcasting, he turned this lifelong hobby into his profession, specialising in portraiture. He was elected a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) in 1971, and awarded the Royal Television Society's Silver Medal the following year.

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