The Poster: A Visual History

Featuring posters from the world-class collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, this book is the perfect resource for all those who appreciate one of the most popular art forms.

Even in the digital age, the printed poster has continued to be one of the most influential and well-loved ways of informing and entertaining audiences. A powerful means of mass communication, posters are an invaluable resource for understanding the time periods in which they were produced and distributed and have often played key roles in shaping society.

Organized into seven thematic chapters, The Poster brings together more than 300 examples that offer a comprehensive history of the poster as a medium that has been used to share, sell, or incite political and social change. The text traces the poster through innovations in design, illustration, typography, and printing, as well as movements in art, including Art Nouveau, modernism, Art Deco, psychedelia, and punk.

Featuring works by A. M. Cassandre, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Alphonse Mucha, Milton Glaser, Paula Scher, and Peter Gee, and many more, this book is an essential resource for graphic designers, illustrators, and anyone interested in social and political history.

300 illustrations

Gill Saunders is honorary senior research fellow at the V&A Research Institute, London. She is the author of Screenprints: A History and Edward Bawden's England, and coauthor, with Margaret Timmers, of The Poster: A Visual History.

Margaret Timmers is the former Senior Curator of Prints in the Word & Image Department of the V&A. She is the editor of Impressions of the Twentieth Century and The Power of the Poster.

Catherine Flood is a Curator of Prints in the Word & Image Department of the V&A.

Zorian Clayton is a curator of prints in the art, architecture, photography, and design department of the V&A.