Art & Art History
Department

Golden Age of British Railway Posters: Romanticism and Modernity in Advertising Imagery

Abstract:  In 1923, the British railway system was amalgamated into four regional and geographic companies. The years between 1923 and 1947 are known as the golden age of posters. During this time innovations in graphic design flourished and some of the railways used these new techniques in developing their visual advertising campaigns. In my paper, I looked at the way fine art movements at the time, influenced graphic art and design, and examined the ways these images were used in developing advertising that not only looked good, but worked in a poster format. I focused my investigation on imagery that I saw as expressing the tension of the railway, as both a possible means for escaping modern life into the great “outdoors” and the representation of the train as a modern and innovative form of transportation. Poster designers constructed images of nature to advertise the romance of travel and sight seeing. While the train advertised where it could take its passenger, it also had to advertise itself. Images of the train began to appear in posters, using modern art movement vocabularies to advertise the speed and efficiency of the trains. As a form of advertisement, these posters were created for public consumption and therefore needed public spaces in which to be presented. The railway station became a gallery space, where it could show its work to all its passengers.