Poster Girls

Colourful exhibition at the London Transport Museum of posters designed by women over the last 100 years.

Since 1908 and the appointment of Frank Pick as head of underground publicity, London Transport had taken a progressive view of commissioning posters including using a lot of women artists. In the early 20th century design was seen as a more viable option for women artists than entering the main art market.

The show included nice biographies of the artists alongside lovely examples of their works. It also showed how these posters were on the cutting edge of design and were a driver of the Art Deco and post Second World War style as well as reflecting it.

I loved a section on Anna and Doris Zinkelsen who were portrait artists and set designers. There was a nice portrait of Anna as a member of the St John’s Ambulance in the Second World War alongside her posters for them. Also Freda Lingstrom, who went on to be head of BBC Children’ s TV and created Andy Pandy and the Flower Pot Men.

I liked Gaynor Chapman’s work from the second half of the 20th century with images based on a burst of images of different types of building such as village churches. My favourite image was from 2014 by Clare Woods of a pillar under Canon Street station and it’s reflections in the water. I remember seeing it on the underground and went to find the view on a walk along the river.

It was also interesting to see that Enid Marx designed the seating fabric in the 20s as I’d recently seen an exhibition about the current fabric which is also designed by two women.

Closes January 2019

 

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