So it’s 150 years this year since our faithful London Underground opened. She’s an old bird, her lines invariably closed for maintenance, and yes, she finds it hard to cope with leaves, snow, and rain. But even if the rest of the world’s systems have mainly surpassed ours, no matter. The trouble with being a pioneer is that everyone else learns from your mistakes, right?
A surefire way to celebrate her centenary and a half, should you wish, is to head down to the London Transport Museum to check out their new exhibition Poster Art 150. And anyway what’s the betting that, unless you have kids, you haven’t been to the LTM for a while?
Picked by experts from the art and design world from an archive of over three thousand, for me, the appeal of the posters is the romance of the Golden Age of Travel, the escape from the city. The charm of the idealistic first decades of underground travel abounds in aspirational scenes of countryside, Mary Poppins-esque innocence, streams and weeping willows. There are even lounging nymphs and fairies – and that’s just in Watford and Eastcote.
But wow, what a surprise to see a pair of Man Ray ‘Keeps London Going’ works complete with flying saucers and artwork from the great Paul Nash. Then there are offerings from ‘Poster King’ Edward McKnight Kauffer, Freda Lingstrom (creator of Andy Pandy and The Flowerpot Men), and Mabel Lucie Attwell, illustrator of children’s classics Water Babies and Peter Pan.
Some posters were familiar and brought back memories of my first journeys on the underground. Who remembers Howard Hodgkin’s painting for Highgate Ponds? John Bellany’s ‘Chinatown by Underground’, the most challenging piece commissioned here due to its unexplained symbolism? Or more recently Dryden Goodwin’s ‘Linear’ with its animated sketches of the Jubilee Line staff?
How wonderfully naïve some of them are, too. In 1926, the tube was promoted as a place to escape the outside elements, “The Underground’s the only spot, for comfort when the days are hot. It’s Cooler Below” boasts one.
The exhibition is divided into themes: Finding your way, Brightest London, Capital Culture: Away from it All, Keeps London Going, and Love Your City. Oh and I do, I thought, as an overwhelming passion arose towards the end. It really does make me proud to be a Londoner to see the ever changing metropolis and its social mores played out in something as ostensibly unmemorable as promotional posters.
Finally, a tip. The true gems of this exhibition hang in the cramped downstairs gallery; just make sure you don’t miss a single one of them.
Words: Nikki Verdon
1 thought on “Art: Poster Art 150, London Transport Museum”
On the other side of avoiding the elements, my grandaunt was a trainee nurse at the Royal Free in the late ’30s/early ’40s, making next to nothing. When she and her friends had a day off, they would bring a flask of tea and spend all day going up and down the Northern line, chatting, as the Tube was always well heated.