CHAPTER 4
LONDON UNDERGROUND POSTERS & PUNCH POST WAR F
ougasse started producing designs and posters for the London Underground in the 1920s, but his finest work was realised in the following two decades. One early example, depicting a sectional view of a London street and the tube tunnels below, was praised by the Morning Advertiser on 18 April 1925. The caption suggested that above ground there was ‘too much waiting and too little room’, while below ground there was ‘plenty of room and no waiting’.1 The differing sizes of Underground posters are discussed in detail in the publication London Transport Posters: A Century of Art and Design (2008), jointly edited by David Bownes and Oliver Green. They ranged from small ‘Panel Posters’ of non-standard sizes used in the 1920s and 30s and placed on glass screens just inside the doors of the carriages, to the standard poster size of 40in. x 25in. (Double Royal). Larger posters were also produced of 40in. x 50in. (Quad Royal) and 60in. x 40in. (Four Sheet or Double Quad). In addition there was also a poster 30in. x 20in. (Double-Crown) for display on the front panels of buses and the side panel of trams. In the mid 1940s, London Underground commissioned Fougasse to produce his finest transport posters encouraging commuters and travellers to avoid the rush hour, stand
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