Clifford and Rosemary Ellis
It Is Better To Return Early
Lithographic poster
102 x 61 cm
Printed by Waterlow & Sons Ltd for London Transport.
This original vintage poster was designed for London Transport and encourages shoppers to head home earlier in the day to avoid congestion on the London Underground and buses. The well-heeled customers in the poster sport smart 1930s shoes, and jostle against their purchases (a Father Christmas puppet and red-berried holly leaves mark the design as published in time for Christmas). The pinstripe-suited gentleman’s newspaper serves as the background for the first line of the poster’s text, which is slanted in the synthetic cubist style (synthetic cubists were keen to explore collage in their work, often employing collage, especially of newsprint).
London Transport was the forerunner of London Underground. During the 1930s London Transport commissioned over forty posters a year from well-known artists such as Laura Knight, CRW Nevinson, Edward Wadsworth, Eric Ravilious, Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland, and Edward McKnight Kauffer – a bold policy that did much to popularise avant-garde artistic styles that stemmed from Cubism, Futurism and Abstraction.
Condition: very good, backed to linen.
If you are interested, please email info@manningfineart.co.uk or call us on 07929 749056.
