Theyre Lee-Elliott: British Graphic Design in the 1930s

Poster: Into the Air, Airmail Outward from the
United Kingdom, 1927–1933, c. 1933
Commissioner: General Post Office
Lithograph, 19 7/8 x 14 15/16” (49.4 x 38 cm)

Today we bring you a group of posters and poster designs by Theyre Lee-Elliott (British, 1903–1988). Conversant with the developments of the continental avant-garde, Lee-Elliott brought a distinct lightness and elegance to his use of geometric forms, flat planes of color, and abstract symbols representing statistical information.

His campaigns for Britain’s General Post Office, Ministry of Health, and Imperial Airways shown here are followed by a poster advertising London Week, a weekly listings magazine which brought him closer to the cultural world he adored. By the early 1940s, Lee-Elliott had abandoned graphic design in favor of painting. He designed sets for London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre and devoted himself to the depiction of dancers. His book Paintings of the Ballet was published in 1947.*

* Theyre Lee-Elliott, Paintings of the Ballet, with an introduction by Arnold L. Haskell (London: Collins, 1947).

Poster: Into the Letterbox, Growth of Letter Mail Traffic in the
United Kingdom between 1924 and 1933, c. 1933
Commissioner: General Post Office
Lithograph, 30 x 20” (76.2 x 50.8 cm)

Left: Poster: Fall in Death Rate between 1900 and 1937, c. 1937
Lithograph: 25 x 20” (63.5 x 50.8 cm)
Right: Poster: Deaths per Million from Typhoid between 1838 and 1938, c. 1938
Lithograph, 25 3/16 x 19 13/16” (64 x 50.3 cm)
Commissioner (both): Ministry of Health

Poster design: Streamline Prefers, 1933
Cut-and-pasted gelatin silver print, gouache, and pencil on paper,
11 x 17 3/4” (27.9 x 45.1 cm)

Poster design: Fly to Sunshine by Imperial Airways, c. 1933
Cut-and-pasted gelatin silver print, gouache, and pencil on paper,
15 3/8 x 13 7/8” (39.1 x 35.2 cm)

Poster: British Airways to Paris and Scandinavia,
As the Crow Flies—Only Faster, c. 1937
Lithograph, 40 3/4 x 25 1/4" (103.5 x 64.1 cm)

Poster: ‘London Week’ Tells You Everything, c. 1937
Lithograph, 28 3/8 x 20 1/6” (72.1 x 51.2 cm)
Note: Modelled on the New Yorker, London Week first appeared in 1935
offering weekly listings of goings on about town. In 1937, its name was changed to What’s On (incorporating London Week and London Day by Day).

August 29, 2023