Posters on the Underground at London Transport Museum

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by Sandra Lawson (subscribe)

To paraphrase Dorothy: 'There is no place like London.' I hope I can convince you of that here. Also check out my blog at damselwithadulcimer.wordpress.com and my theatre reviews at www.playstosee.com

Event: 15/02/2013 - 27/10/2013

Posters on the Underground from the 1900s to the 2000s

Poster Art 150

By now you must be aware that the London Tube system celebrated its 150th birthday earlier this year. As part of the commemorations, the London Transport Museum is exhibiting 150 posters chosen from the many that have appeared over the years. As they have evolved, many of these have become works of art in their own right and have been used for several different purposes. In the early days these just included showing train timetables and fare prices, as well as reassuring the travelling public. Over the years they were also used to promote destinations in and around London.

1886 Railway Fare Chart

Take the Twopenny Tube and Avoid All Anxiety. This was a way of reassuring and educating the travelling public. (Image Courtesy of the London Transport Museum Poster Collection)

Into the Heart of the Shopping Centres 1908 (Image Courtesy of the London Transport Museum's Poster Collection)

When you visit the museum you are also aware of certain kinds of styles and iconographies, and of how the posters are a reflection of their own periods and artistic styles. If you're of a certain age you will also be reminded of posters you thought had may have forgotten, and will also see ones that you don't even remember.

You can also plot the changes in the posters over the decades. After the 1900s and 1910s, established artists, such as Mabel Lucie Attwell and Frank Brangwyn were commissioned; whilst through the next ten years posters became much brighter, many of them reflecting the modernism of contemporary art, with artists like Paul Nash and Man Ray coming into the stable. The 1940s and the war years saw posters used for propaganda purposes, whilst the 1950s showed an awareness of their advertising uses. By the 1960s the traditional lithography was superceded by photography and this continued into the 1970s and 1980s when the posters were mainly commissioned from agencies. In the 1990s London Transport Advertising was privatised, whilst still retaining a couple of important artists. At the turn of the millenium digital technology techniques were employed by the newly formed TfL.