Poster Girls exhibition showcases forgotten design heroines

With a dazzling spectrum of designs used to advertise the capital's transport system, for more than a century women have been shaping the way London is perceived.

Yet the identity of many of these female artists has been hidden. Often they would not sign their work, or just used initials. Other pieces were subsumed under the name of an advertising agency.

Now Poster Girls, an exhibition of work by women at the forefront of graphic design, is to go on display at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden.

Here are some of the artworks by women who influenced the London brand.


At the beginning of the 20th Century, the opportunities for female illustrators were generally limited to book and magazine illustration. The first known poster by a woman to appear on the transport network was Kew Gardens by Tram, by Ella Coates in 1910.

She signed her work without her first name, making it impossible for passers-by to realise the artist was a woman.

Between the 1920s and 1930s many more female artists began to design posters for London Underground and London Transport.

New social and political freedoms after the war, combined with easier access to art education, meant that becoming a designer was for the first time seen as a viable career option for women.

But male designers were still paid more and achieved greater fame than their female colleagues.

Share: