Art for All: British Posters for Transport

Edited by Teri J. Edelstein

Essays by Teri J. Edelstein, Oliver Green, Neil Harris, Peyton Skipwith, and Michael Twyman

Published by the Yale Center for British Art in association with Yale University Press

280 pages, 11 x 8 1/2 inches, 330 illustrations, cloth, ISBN 978-0300152975

Publication date: June 29, 2010

Description

In 1908, London Underground began a comprehensive publicity program that became one of the most successful, adventurous, and best-sustained promotional operations ever attempted. The posters commissioned not only encouraged travel on the capital’s burgeoning public transport system but they also helped to foster a civic identity for metropolitan London. The four national rail lines created in 1923, inspired by this example, created their own campaigns. This richly illustrated volume celebrates the designs, highlighting works that are among the triumphs of twentieth-century poster art. Designed to accompany an exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art, Art for All features more than 100 works executed for the Underground and the railways. The exhibition and catalogue explores the evolution of transport posters in twentieth-century Britain. It features the career of E. McKnight Kauffer, perhaps the greatest of these poster artists; the role of women designers; the printing techniques that brought the designs to life; and the strategies of display developed by the transport systems. Both a visual delight and a work of scholarship, Art for All pays tribute to these extraordinary exploits in public design.