Boat Race poster 1923 Oxford v Cambridge – London Underground Poster – Charles Paine

Charles Paine’s career accomplishments are extensive. His work encompasses stained glass, book illustration, watercolour and acrylic painting. It includes interior design, commercial advertising, teaching, as well as textile and wallpaper design. Today he is probably best known for his many poster designs for companies, including London Underground, Empire Marketing Board, and the GPO, and his work for Penguin Books, and Sundour Fabrics.

The Pendleton-born artist was clearly a gifted talent in the art and crafts tradition. Starting out at the Salford School of Art in Manchester, Paine was apprenticed to the craft of making stained glass. Paine honed his craft at the Royal College of Art before leaving London to work for the Applied Art Department of Edinburgh College of Art under John Platt, who had a significant influence on Paine’s work. It’s believed that Platt introduced him to Frank Pick, who commissioned Paine to design many posters for the London Underground.

Whilst Charles Paine produced posters for a range of companies it is his iconic work for various London transport organisations that he is best remembered for. His breathtaking designs adorned underground, bus and tram stations for nearly a decade. From 1920 to 1929, Paine created more than 20 stunning posters that captured the essence of the city and its culture. Among his most cherished designs are those that continue to captivate audiences with their timeless beauty and charm including his fabulous 1922 Kingston By Tram poster that features the four white Kingston Swans zig-zagging down the River Thames. It was the first poster the artist created for the London Transport company. One of his most eye-catching designs is the 1921 Uxbridge poster that depicts 13 golden and one red fish swimming in blue and teal waters.

In 2013, Paine’s Uxbridge (fishes) poster design was one of three Paine posters featured in the 150 best posters exhibited by London Underground during the 150th-anniversary celebrations. The other two were probably his two most popular and recognised designs, which, even if you didn’t know the artist by name, have become iconic images of the golden age of the underground and are familiar to most people. The first is his 1921 For the Zoo poster which depicts a waddle of blue, black and white penguins set against a yellow background. It is one of the underground’s most iconic posters and is highly sought after with one original copy selling for almost £10,000 back in 2013. The other Underground poster to feature in the 150th-anniversary celebrations was the 1925 Richmond Park poster that combines natural elements with history in the shape of the park’s wildlife and the famous 750-year-old oak tree, known as the Royal Oak.

Another poster by the Mancunian-born artist we’d like to include is his Barnet by Tram poster created in 1922. The design published by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London features an superb image of seven ponies corralled at the Barnet horse fair… an annual horse and pleasure fair that used to be held near Mays Lane, Barnet, England.

One poster Paine created for the London Underground portrays the artist’s humorous, light-hearted approach and reflects his early career work as a stained glass artist the most is his 1922 poster advertising travel to Hampton Court by Tram. The colourful print depicts Henry VIII as a gardener and his six wives as topiary bushes. The style predates the similar style of 8-bit graphics used in computer games such as Mario Brothers and Pacman by seventy years.

Paine’s simple graphic shapes, dynamic compositions and use of bold, flat colours were a perfect solution for poster design. His style was innovative, departing from the standard advertising of the time, which often featured literal representations of the subject. Instead, he used simplified forms and large blocks of colour, making his posters interesting, eye-catching and effective. His limited use of colour also made the posters economical to reproduce, and by the mid-1920s, other poster artists widely copied his artistic style.