Vintage Travel

The travel poster was born with mass tourism, in the late nineteenth century, when railway companies and shipping lines realised that a fine image was worth a thousand timetables. The Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee (PLM) line praised Italy and the Riviera, the London Underground commissioned its pictograms from Frank Pick, and after the war airlines such as Pan Am sold the Caribbean in flat colour. These vintage travel posters distil a destination into a single image: a landmark, a sky, the promise of departure.

This collection gathers the great dream routes: Rome and its Forum under the PLM signature, London and its Underground, Milan and its Duomo, San Francisco and the Golden Gate, Naples seen through the ENIT tourist board, Takahashi Shotei's Mount Fuji rapids and the Pan Am clippers bound for Bermuda. Above a sideboard, in a hallway or a traveller's study, they tell of an itinerary and invite you to build a whole wall, city after city.

Discover also: Art Deco, Landscapes and Architecture. Collection favourites: Poster Rome Vintage Travel Forum PLM and Poster London Vintage Travel Underground.