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On your wall
Five Schools, Built to Deepen · Underground & Railway
Poster, The North Downs, London Underground
Edward McKnight Kauffer · London Underground, 1915
What it is
An offset lithograph on paper, printed in 1915 by Johnson, Riddle & Co. of south-east London, showing a hilly landscape of worked fields. It was designed by the American-born Edward McKnight Kauffer to sell London Underground travel out to the chalk downs south of the city.
Why it matters
This sits among Kauffer's earliest Underground posters, made soon after he settled in England and fell into the Underground's design program - then one of the few places in Britain a modern graphic language could reach the street at scale. He treats the countryside not as a picture to admire but as an argument: ride out, the downs are an afternoon away.
What to notice
Look at how the hills are pulled into flat interlocking blocks of green and brown, the fields simplified past realism into pure shape.
The English landscape, redrawn as something a train could deliver.
Provenance
- School
- Underground & Railway Posters (Various)
- Designer
- Edward McKnight Kauffer
- Printer / house
- Johnson, Riddle & Co., Ltd., London, S.E.
- Format
- Travel poster
- Poster published
- London Underground, 1915
- Source
- Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum · 1963-39-15
Rights: CLEAR. Public domain — U.S. 95-year rule (published 1930 or earlier). Gated by the poster’s own publication year. Cleared by registry on 2026-07-18.
Format
The full-resolution, color-managed file — restored honestly, yours to print and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan supports sizes up to 18x24" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
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