This iconic London Underground poster was published to encourage West End theatregoers to travel by Underground. Most of London's famous theatres are marked on the map with red banners. The poster covers all of the West End, Soho, Covent Garden, and the Strand, from Green Park to Holborn. This was one of a pair of posters designed by Cecil Walter Bacon to promote central London as an evening leisure destination accessible via the Underground - the other promoted London's cinemas. Other Bacon designs include a poster promoting the opening of the Piccadilly Line extension to Arnos Grove in 1932 and a guide to events happening "This Week in London" in April 1933.

Decorative posters had been a hallmark of London Underground’s advertising strategy since Frank Pick’s arrival as head of the UERL’s Publicity Department in 1908. When the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) was founded in 1933 to amalgamate all of London’s urban railways, trams, and buses under a single umbrella corporation, Frank Pick was named as CEO, giving him even greater control over the Underground’s design, branding, and advertising.

Many of the great artists of the day, including Edward Bawden, Macdonald Gill, Cecil Bacon, Edward McKnight Kauffer, and Heather Perry received commissions from Frank Pick. With over 40 new posters issued each year in the heyday of poster design, there was plenty of work for both established and emerging artists – Bawden’s exuberant poster for the 1924 British Empire Exhibition was his first commission after finishing art school.

As these posters were largely intended for display on station walls, they are rare on the market today. London Underground’s posters spawned many imitators, including the iconic railway posters of British Railways and the later airline posters for Pan-Am, Air France, and Imperial Airways. In 1927 the art critic for The Times opined that “there can be no doubt at all that the credit for the earliest consistent use of good posters of any kind belongs to the Underground”.

Laid down on archival linen. Printed colour. [Framed]