London: Posters from the London Transport Museum Book of Postcards

The world’s first subterranean railway, the London Underground opened in 1863 and now provides three million rides daily. In 1908, Underground executive Frank Pick began seeking out the country’s best artists and designers to produce advertising posters for the expanding transit system. Color printing developments in the last decades of the nineteenth century transformed poster art, and Pick recognized the potential of this graphic medium. The Underground became an important patron of the arts and an acknowledged leader in the field of poster publicity.

For a century, copies of every poster produced for the Underground and its affiliates were kept, and when the collection was transferred to London Transport Museum in the 1980s, it contained more than five thousand printed posters and almost one thousand original artworks. Steadily growing since then, the collection offers a uniquely comprehensive overview of a century of British graphic design. This book of postcards reproduces thirty Underground posters advertising travel in and around London.

Images

1. Frederick Charles Herrick (British, 1887–1970), Keeps London’s Heart Aglow, 1925
2. Edward Bawden (British, 1903–1989), Changing the Guard, 1925
3. Dora M. Batty (British, 1900–1966), Regents Park to See the Rose Garden, 1932
4. Joan Beales, London’s Museums, 1955
5. George Edward Kruger Gray (British, 1880–1943) and Dorothy Hutton (British, 1889–1984), Historical London: No. 4, St. James’s Palace, 1922

6. Reginald Percy Gossop (British, 1876–1951), Ernest Wallcousins (British, 1883–1976), Eric George Fraser (British, 1902–1983), Gerald Dickson, and Frank Adams, The Panorama of London, 1925
7. Verney L. Danvers (British, 1895–1973), Underground, Theatres, 1926
8. Charles W. Baker, Oxford Circus – The New Station, 1925
9. Fred Taylor (British, 1875–1963), London Memories: Hampstead, 1918
10. John Banting (British, 1902–1972), South Kensington, 1936
11. Edward Bawden (British, 1903–1989), Hyde Park, 1925
12. Edward Bawden (British, 1903–1989), City, 1952
13. George Edward Kruger Gray (British, 1880–1943) and Dorothy Hutton (British, 1889–1984), Historical London: No. 1, The Tower, 1922
14. Ronald Glendening (British, 1926–2013), Bands in the Park, 1973
15. Ernest Michael Dinkel (British, 1894–1983), The West-End Is Awakening, 1931
16. Bruce Angrave (British, 1914–1983), Sir Christopher Wren, 1964
17. Ernest Michael Dinkel (British, 1894–1983), Visit the Empire, 1932
18. Charles Paine (British, 1895–1967), For the Zoo, Book to Regent’s Park, 1921
19. Mary Adshead (British, 1904–1995), Country Joys on London’s Underground, 1927
20. Molly Moss, Out and About: Winter London, 1950
21. Austin Cooper (Canadian, 1890–1964), Natural History Museum, Lepidoptera, 1928
22. Charles Atkinson (British, 1879–1957), The Circus, 1933
23. John Griffiths, Covent Garden: Rhubarb and Roses, 1965
24. F. Gregory Brown (British, 1887–1941), Kew Gardens, 1933
25. Charles W. Baker, Chancery Lane, 1934
26. Horace Taylor (British, 1881–1934), Brightest London Is Best Reached by Underground, 1924
27. Andrew Hall, The Imperial War Museum, 1965
28. Maurice Wilson (British, 1914–1987), Enjoy Your London: No. 5, Flowers in the Parks, 1949
29. Cecil Walter Bacon (British, 1905–1992), To the Cinemas, 1934
30. Anthony Green (British, b. 1939), The Royal Academy, 1990

Pomegranate’s books of postcards contain up to thirty top-quality reproductions bound together in a handy, artful collection. Easy to remove and produced on heavy card stock, these stunning postcards are a delight to the sender and receiver. Postcards are oversized and may require additional postage.