Vintage Travel Posters
Evocative of the golden age of luxury travel, vintage travel posters make an appealing tangible investment.
Friday 17th February, 2012
Vintage travel posters were designed to tempt people away from their working lives, with colour-drenched images of the Cote d'Azur, the Caribbean and the Far East. Today, in the age of budget flights and chain hotels, they speak of a bygone era when the world seemed a much larger place, and getting there involved setting sail on a sleek ocean liner or boarding an opulent railway carriage.
Travel posters were produced in increasingly substantial volumes from the 1910s to 50s, as foreign travel became less expensive and the expanding middle classes looked further afield for prestige destinations to visit. Railways and cruise liners were the first to commission graphic artists to create these posters (air travel gradually took around the middle of the century) at a time when lithographic stone printing and the Art Deco aesthetic were flourishing. The result is scores of beautifully glossy, crafted posters that combine bold text with stylised, geometric images.
Look Out For: Travel posters for major, well-known names in travel, such as the White Star Line, GWR, LNER, Canadian Pacific, Air France and Pan American. Pieces signed by the artist always have added value – see below for the names that count.
What’s In A Name? The value of a poster is often linked to the artist, so do pay attention to posters by the most well-known designers. Collectors are willing to pay thousands of dollars for the posters of Adolphe Mouron Cassandre, particularly his ocean liner posters such as Le Normandie. Influenced by Surrealism and Cubism, he even developed his own typefaces, including Bifur and Acier Noir, which are still in use today. Jean Carlu and Paul Colin are other contemporaries whose designs are especially sought after.
From Belgium, Privat Livemont’s (1861-1936) travel posters can sell for over $8,000, while a poster of Austrian American graphic designer Herbert Bayer (1900-1985) broke an auction record at Christie’s in 2010. Vintage Italian travel posters have also grown in popularity in recent years, and some of the best known are Leopoldo Metlicovitz’s (1868-1944) Art Nouveau creations.
The top British artists in the Deco style were Tom Purvis (1888-1959) and Leo Marfurt (1894-1977), both of whom designed posters for the English LNER (London and North Eastern Railway).
Material Matters: Always consider condition: it's not a good idea to buy a damaged poster with the intention of restoring it because a restored piece will never have the value of a poster in original condition. Folds are not so much of a problem, though – most posters made before the 70s were folded – as a professional restorer can remove the creases without trouble.
Price Points: It wasn’t until the late 80s that vintage travel posters began to be seriously collected, yet the demand has sharply shot up since then and sums of tens of thousands are now not unusual at auction. Even posters that sold for £300 a year ago are fetching over £1,000. Now is the time to invest.
VS Tip: Posters in Art Deco styles tend to be the most sought after, and as such more expensive. If you’re looking to enter the market at a lower prince point, however, travel posters of English seaside resorts, the London Underground and British railways done in the 30s and 40s (Vintage Seekers has examples for Torquay, Porthcrawl and South Wales) can still be purchased for a few hundred pounds.
Similarly, consider buying in new categories, such as travel posters from India or China. The growing affluence of BRIC countries and their burgeoning collectors’ markets mean that posters relating to these centres are likely to appreciate in value swiftly.
