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EDWARD MCKNIGHT KAUFFER (1890-1954) POWER / THE NERVE CENTRE OF LONDON'S UNDERGROUND. 1931.
40x25 inches, 101 1/2x63 1/2 cm. Vincent Brooks, Day & Son, Ltd., London.
Condition B+: restored loss along lower right edge; minor restoration along right edge; unobtrusive horizontal fold.
Frank Pick pioneered advertising in Britain. For over thirty years he was in charge of the London Underground's ad campaigns, serving as a great artistic patron to the graphic arts. He commissioned hundreds of young designers to promote the subways and buses of London. In 1915, he gave McKnight Kauffer his first commission. Over the next 20 years, Kauffer designed 141 posters for the company, as well as undertaking the redesign of subway stations, the installation of murals and much more. This is one of Kauffer's undisputed masterpieces, a powerful and commanding Machine Age image, one of the best designed during the artist's Art Deco period. "The extraordinary power of the factory and its turbines is transmitted not by sheer force of electricity but by the muscular arm and hand of the worker. [The poster's text] is realized in the fine blue veins that run through the worker's arm and into the spinning steel of the turbine, which simultaneously represents the wheels of the subway trains with the Underground logo in the center...Kauffer visually portrays the symbiosis of humans and machines, touting the machine for its extraordinary powers yet keeping alive its connection to humankind" (Mechanical Age p. 119). Although dated 1930, the poster was not released until 1931. Kauffer p. 63, Word & Image p. 77, Modern Poster p. 167, Euro Deco p. 465, Art Deco Graphics p. 78, London Transport Posters p. 39, Mechanical Age p. 119.