London Transport Posters [Hardcover]

David Bownes and Oliver Green (Author), David Bownes (Editor), Oliver Green (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0853319847 | ISBN-13: 978-0853319849

"London Transport Posters" celebrates a century of outstanding graphic design commissioned by the Underground, London Transport, and its present-day successor, Transport for London. This book explores the organisation's pioneering role as Britain's greatest patron of poster art, a unique role developed in the early twentieth century under the visionary leadership of Frank Pick. The selected artworks and posters, many published here for the first time, reflect a dazzling variety of period styles and techniques, produced by an extraordinary range of artists and designers attracted by the Underground's world-wide reputation. The resulting legacy includes works by practitioners as diverse as John Hassall, Edward McKnight Kauffer, Laura Knight, Man Ray, Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland, Abram Games, William Roberts, Howard Hodgkin and David Shrigley.Drawing on newly researched sources in the archives of London Transport Museum and Transport for London, this book discusses and illustrates the different styles and themes emerging from the posters over the last hundred years. These include the contrasting approaches of commercial graphic designers and the group of modernist avant-garde artists commissioned by the Underground in the 1920s and 1930s; the use of posters to support the expansion of the Tube by attracting new audiences and selling an aspirational vision of suburbia; the important role of women in the development of poster advertising both as designers and consumers; the different uses of the transport poster during two world wars; the changing fortunes of the poster in the post-war period; and, the public view of posters from 1908 to the present day.More than 250 images are drawn from the London Transport Museum's collection of over 5000 posters and artworks, which represents the most complete graphic archive of its kind to be assembled by a single organisation over so long a period anywhere in the world. "London Transport Posters: A Century of Art and Design" is richly illustrated with examples of posters from all periods, and will be an invaluable reference book and visual resource for all those with an interest in twentieth-century design.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'..makes a superb gift that will keep any Londoner or any visitor to the capital for that matter, informed and diverted for years.' RA Winter 'Several books have been published on London Transport posters, but this surpasses them all.' --Grahame Boyles

About the Author

David Bownes is Senior Curator at London Transport Museum. Oliver Green is Head Curator at London Transport Museum and has written and lectured extensively on London Transport's design history. Jonathan Black is a Senior Research Fellow in History of Art at Dorich House Museum, Kingston University, with a special interest in early twentieth-century European art, cultural and military history. Emmanuelle Dirix is a design historian and associate lecturer at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London and the London College of Fashion. Claire Dobbin is an art historian and Project Curator at London Transport Museum. Catherine Flood is a Curator of Prints at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London with responsibility for the Museum's poster collection. Bex Lewis is an Honorary Research Fellow in History at the University of Winchester. Alan Powers is Professor of Architecture and Cultural History at the University of Greenwich and has written extensively on twentieth-century British art and design. Paul Rennie is Head of Context in Graphic Design at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London. Brian Webb is a practising designer who, with his former agency Trickett and Webb, designed a number of posters for London Underground.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Lund Humphries Pub Ltd (September 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0853319847
• ISBN-13: 978-0853319849
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #231,124 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #34 in Books > Arts & Photography > Other Media > Prints

Customer Reviews

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exemplary Design for Art and Commerce, January 13, 2009

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R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: London Transport Posters (Hardcover)

When you think of patrons of the arts, you might think of the Medici family, or the Guggenheims, or maybe one of today's billionaires. You might not think of commercial or governmental enterprise. But in the twentieth century one particular London organization became a patron to a particular art form, and chances are that even if you have never been in London, you have seen the results. London Transport, in its own self interest, became a supporter of poster art, and the graphics that resulted have been hugely influential. _London Transport Posters: A Century of Art and Design_ (published by Lund Humphries in association with London Transport Museum, and edited by David Bownes and Oliver Green, with eight other contributors) is a colorful presentation of truly great poster art. There are probably few advertisements that you'd spend money on and frame, but these handsome, informative, amusing, and persuasive posters have always generated enough enthusiasm that London Transport has had to print up extras not for the Tube stations or bus stops, but also for people to take home. The book explains how this successful partnership between commerce and art came to be and has continued.

Much of the credit for the patronage goes to the managing director of London Transport between the wars, Frank Pick, who came to the job in 1908. There were two great graphic steps Pick took to provide unity to the Underground system. One was to persuade calligrapher Edward Johnson to produce a distinctive set of letters that would be used for the Underground's signs and publicity. The other was to choose draughtsman Harry Beck to provide a tube map. Beck realized that within the tunnels, no one could actually see the layout, so he reduced them to something like a simple wiring diagram, disregarding scale and drawing all the lines with only verticals, horizontals, or 45 degree diagonals. The resulting map has been copied for subway systems all over the world. Lettering and maps are basically functional. Pick wanted to concentrate on the visual experience of traveling in the Underground, but as his biographer says, "Pick had no intention of turning the Underground into a picture gallery." Rather than being just art, Pick liked the idea of art with a function. "Art must come down from her pedestal and work for a living," he proclaimed in 1913. The change he wrought in poster design was phenomenal; before his efforts, posters had mostly been words, and though the typefaces might be exuberant, the idea of using pictures and a unifying design was revolutionary. Posters announced museum shows, demonstrated the functioning mechanisms of an escalator, or suggested a pleasant change of scene to the country. The poster artists developed a house style, with a reduction in detail and with dark outlines that contrasted with contemporary posters from the rest of Europe. Pick explained that "detail is sacrificed to an emphasis on dominant outline. The work becomes impressionist, because it is indeed essential that it should make an impression on the observer." People liked the artwork and paid attention to it. During World War One, copies of nostalgic posters showing "London Memories" were sent to the troops bearing the inscription "With the complements of the Underground." Though many of the pictures were idyllic views of natural scenes or villages, many were daring experiments in abstraction. Man Ray made one in 1938 that showed only two objects, the ring-and-bar logo of the Underground (without letters) and a ringed planet. The advertising was also an experiment in social engineering. When the Underground was going empty on off-peak hours, the artists produced designs reminding riders that the Tube could be used to get to football matches or the theater. When city fathers saw the advantage in having citizens live in open suburbs and commute to work downtown, posters were developed that bragged about neighborhoods accessible by Tube. There were posters reminding people of basic politeness, how to make way on the escalators, or how to make room on the cars: "Think of the others. A door obstructor is a selfish person."

This is a handsome book with scores of colorful posters. It is remarkable that such a seemingly inartistic assignment (the posters, after all, have the apparently dull job of promoting public transport) should have gotten such varied and vivid responses. There were plenty of stupid and ugly urban ads in the twentieth century, but here is a demonstration that taking design seriously, and applying creativity and wit, can produce ads that are not only effective, but are handsome enough for people to want to see them on their own walls.