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Fashioning the tube

Fashioning the tube
Fashioning the tube
"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.
0853319847
130-145
Lund Humphries
Dirix, Emmanuelle
81b6957e-e128-418d-bd59-77e13ae94de7
Bownes, David
85b29ba8-8064-402c-9568-eb14f4df1bf5
Green, Oliver
15e3a915-c3fc-42e4-a898-748b30d4795e
Black, Jonathan
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Powers, Alan
1a3ca458-f852-4c63-bca1-4df63c426e7c
Lewis, Bex
8afd9b33-3531-44c5-86fd-577bfe09613d
Dirix, Emmanuelle
81b6957e-e128-418d-bd59-77e13ae94de7
Bownes, David
85b29ba8-8064-402c-9568-eb14f4df1bf5
Green, Oliver
15e3a915-c3fc-42e4-a898-748b30d4795e
Black, Jonathan
7e992e7d-b790-4a2b-ab1b-40c3ea73d992
Powers, Alan
1a3ca458-f852-4c63-bca1-4df63c426e7c
Lewis, Bex
8afd9b33-3531-44c5-86fd-577bfe09613d

Dirix, Emmanuelle, Bownes, David, Green, Oliver, Black, Jonathan, Powers, Alan and Lewis, Bex (2008) Fashioning the tube. In, London Transport Posters: a Century of Art and Design. Surrey, County of, GB. Lund Humphries, pp. 130-145.

Record type: Book Section

Abstract

"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.

Text
LT_Posters_Ch6_pp130-145.pdf - Version of Record
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More information

Published date: 1 September 2008

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 148977
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/148977
ISBN: 0853319847
PURE UUID: 94e25d73-0739-412b-9369-d04677bf5f7b

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Date deposited: 30 Apr 2010 12:49
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 01:04

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Contributors

Author: Emmanuelle Dirix
Author: David Bownes
Author: Oliver Green
Author: Jonathan Black
Author: Alan Powers
Author: Bex Lewis

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