London Transport Museum

Getting on the tube these days means being bombarded with dozens of ugly advertisements, selling you everything from whisky, to electric toothbrushes and LED facemasks. However, things weren’t always this way. Unlike today’s dull Underground adverts, tube stations during the 1920s and 30s were adorned with strikingly vibrant art deco posters that promoted things to do and places to go around London. Over a hundred of these are exhibited at the London Transport Museum’s latest temporary exhibition, Art Deco: the golden age of poster design, alongside objects like a cigarette case, compact mirror, and tea set that express the decadence of that period.  Back then, a post-war economic boom had propelled consumerism, affording people more leisure time than ever.  Speed, freedom, and opportunity became the ethos of an era that could harness industrial technology in recreation rather than warfare. Such carefreeness is reflected in the bold colours, opulent typefaces, sharp geometry, and indulgent scenes of Londoners enjoying a day out. While a younger audience will be drawn to their vintage aesthetic, older visitors might find them charmingly nostalgic. Art deco didn’t get its name until the 1960s when it came under academic scrutiny; during its day it was simply known as Style Moderne. Which is fitting because many of the artists regularly commissioned by London Transport took vivid inspiration from modernist art movements such as cubism, futurism, and vorticism; unknowingly...