Building up steam for poster art

In the golden age of rail the posters became artworks adorning railway stations, tempting tourists to visit destinations around the country.

Next month, two rail posters, created for the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) showcasing Harrogate and declaring “It’s quicker by rail” will go under the hammer. The works are each expected to fetch between £800 and £1,200 in a vintage poster sale.

A spokeswoman for Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions, which is holding the sale in London, on February 12, said: “The interest in railway posters is due to the romance of train travel, when the majority of holiday makers took their holidays by train.

“Advertising art has a huge following with the strongest areas being from classic cinema images, such as King Kong. Collectors tend to be younger people who value nostalgia as well as wanting something cool to go on their wall.

“The world of poster advertising pre-dates TV and the internet and was the way of communication with a mass audience. Posters adorned railways stations throughout the UK countryside, as well as in towns and cities. They are what TV commercials are to us today and always portrayed an attractive, appealing and tempting subject.

“Commercial artists were employed purely to work on posters – be it for Shell, London Underground or National Railways to give a few examples. Many of the artists are now collectable in their own right and our sale shows a fascinating poster by Austin Cooper for Harrogate British Spa,” the spokeswoman added.

Artists were employed to create posters that would persuade people to take a trip to some of the locations served by the railways. Engines such as the Liverpool-Newcastle express were a familiar sight at Harrogate station, bringing visitors to the spa town.

Later this month two vintage posters of Harrogate, created by artists, for the LNER will go under the hammer.

One, a 1939 lithograph poster by artist Austin Cooper, features a couple strolling in Harrogate, which the advert calls The British Spa.

It is estimated it will fetch between £800 and £1,000.

A second poster, by the Scottish born artist Gordon Mitchell Forsyth in 1939, again advertises the spa town and is predicted to raise between £800 and £1,200 at the auction. The artist was better known as a ceramic designer.

The son of an Irish farmer, Cooper began his career as a commercial artist in Montreal but moved to London in 1922 where he worked as a poster designer until 1943. Despite turning his back on commercial art to concentrate on painting, a post-war exhibition was arranged at the London Gallery in 1948 due to popular demand for his advertising designs and artwork. His first poster was commissioned by the London Underground but his clients also included Indian State Railways.

A selection of vintage travel posters will sit alongside propaganda and sporting designs in the auction.

American illustrator and graphic designer Raymond Ameijide created the most expensive piece in the sale for the Pan Am airline to promote Bermuda as the holiday destination of choice. The original offset lithograph, which was created in the 1950s, helped Bermuda’s tourism reach its peak in the 60s and 70s and is expected to sell for £2,000-£3,000.

By the mid-1950s another American artist, David Klein, had formed a reputation as a prominent American commercial artist. In the decade that followed he produced award-winning travel posters, mostly for Trans World Airlines. Included in the sale, circa 1958 is the iconic Fly TWA, San Francisco, showing the Golden Gate Bridge in Klein’s typically optimistic colour scheme.

The sale is on view at Bloomsbury House, Maddox Street, London, from February 9 to 11. Online bidding will be available via www.bloomsburyauctions.com.