The Artist, the Advertiser, the Public: The Great Western Railway Poster as Collaborative Design

Abstract

Between 1923 and 1939 the Great Western Railway (GWR) company produced over a hundred lithographic posters which advertised its services to the West Country. Despite their popularity during the period, these posters have been criticized by poster art scholars who consider them old-fashioned in comparison with modernist poster designs. This article aims to reconsider this dismissal by identifying the complex network of agents involved in GWR poster production and by examining the aesthetic, social and economic values the resulting posters were intended to extol.