Elegance and style: travel posters of the past

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Veronica Davies travels back in time with two new books

Two good-looking, large format books have recently been published by the Antique Collectors’ Club, devoted to posters that evoke the heyday of elegant and leisurely long-distance travel by train and ocean liner.

Thierry Favre’s text for Railway Posters traces the history of the development of the railways throughout the world from the mid-19th century to the early years of the 21st.  This covers the early use of the train primarily for goods and for short local journeys, to the popularity of rail as a means of luxury travel to holiday destinations such as the French Riviera or Swiss winter sports resorts.  He informs us about technical advances, from steam to diesel and electric trains, as well as relevant historical, political and economic context, and background about the designers who produced the posters. 

The design of the posters illustrated ranges over all the popular styles of the last hundred-odd years, including some fine Art Nouveau and Art Deco examples.  Apart from the appeal to collectors and others interested in poster design, readers whose interests lie in railway history will be fascinated by posters that illustrate the way the design of engines and carriages has changed, and by those that offer information on routes and timetables.  For example, we learn that one could travel first-class straight through from St Petersburg to Cannes in 1904, or from Paris to Peking, which took 12 days, in 1928.  Other posters focus on the landscape and other attractions of the traveller’s journey and ultimate destination, depicting beach resorts, mountains and lakes in many countries.  Sometimes just the names of the trains evoke a vanished age: the Golden Arrow, the Orient Express or the Train Bleu.

The posters for travel by liner are equally powerful in reminding the reader of the importance of ocean travel, especially in the first half of the 20th century. They advertise travel in iconic vessels such as the Normandie or the Queen Mary, and with companies such as Cunard or the Red Star Line, travelling from great ports such as Liverpool and Hamburg.  The artwork was often designed to emphasize the scale and magnificence of these great liners. Anne Massey’s text discusses their history and also provides detailed analysis of the design of the vessels themselves, as well as the posters that advertised the attractions of ocean travel. 

What is also very striking from both text and images is the great variety of ocean-going transport, other than the ‘big names’, that travelled the seas carrying mail and goods of all kinds, transporting emigrants, and linking European countries with colonized territories all around the world.

Both volumes offer a great deal of valuable information for the growing number of enthusiastic collectors of historic posters.  They will, however, also appeal to general readers with an interest in design history and, more widely, in the history of transport over the last century and a half.

Railway Posters  by Thierry Favre is published by Antique Collectors’ Club, 2011. 200 pp., over 200 colour illus, £25.00 hardback. ISBN 9781851496723

Ocean Liner Posters  by Gabriele Cadringher and Anne Masseyand Antique Collectors’ Club, 2011. 200 pp.,  over 200 colour illus, £25.00  hardback.  ISBN 9781851496730