Poster artwork; Winter sales, by Edward McKnight Kauffer, 1924

This is the original artwork for a poster commissioned by the Underground Electric Railway Company in 1924. The highly stylised image was painted by Edward McKnight Kauffer and depicts two elegant ladies holding umbrellas up to London's winter weather. The bold geometric design combines fragmented Cubist forms with the motion and dynamism of Vorticism, with which Kauffer was briefly associated. The umbrella was used in numerous London Underground posters, particularly in the 1920s. Its pleasing symmetry and geometric shape lends itself perfectly to Kauffer's modernist style. The umbrella also presented an apt metaphor for the Underground as a refuge from the English climate. Winter sales adverts like these, targeted primarily at women, aimed to encourage off-peak travel.