Anna Zinkeisen (1901 – 1976)

Wembley Cup Final (1934)

Lithographic poster

40 x 50 cm

Signed in plate lower left, numbered 34/760, and printed by the  DPC (Dangerfield Printing Company) for London Transport.

Anna Zinkeisen created this design in 1934 for London Transport as a panel poster (12.5 x 10″, for display within underground carriages or on buses). The Cup Final that year was between Manchester City and Portsmouth; Manchester City triumphed with a 2-1 scoreline.

This particular lithograph from the same time was produced to a slightly larger scale than the panel poster, and is not recorded in the London Transport Museum archives. The process of lithography requires a skilled operator to draw a negative image on a stone plate (the Greek word ‘lithos’ meaning ‘stone’) – one plate for each colour in the image. The stone is then treated with acid and etched in a way as to produce a printing plate which can then be inked. Printing at different sizes therefore required the manual creation of new plates, and small differences between different sized versions are thus visible.

Anna Zinkeisen won a scholarship to the Royal Academy Schools in 1916, focusing on sculpture and exhibiting at the Royal Academy in 1919. She was awarded the Landseer Award in 1920 and 1921, and went on to become an esteemed portrait artist, often of society ladies. She produced a series of posters for London Transport in the inter-war period. During the Second World War, Zinkeisen became a nurse, and was profoundly affected by the suffering she saw during her time working in St Mary’s Hospital. This is arguably the point at which she and her sister Doris reached the pinnacle of their careers, producing some of the finest and most affecting depictions of the world at war made during this period.

Condition: good. Backed to conservation paper; small loss to bottom left-hand corner and slight toning to extremities.

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