Object Timeline

-0001

1919

  • Work on this object began.

1963

  • We acquired this object.

1996

2015

2020

2021

2024

  • You found it!

Poster, Summer Sale at Derry & Toms

This is a Poster. It was designed by E. McKnight Kauffer and made for (as the client) Derry & Toms. It is dated 1919 and we acquired it in 1963. Its medium is lithograph. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.

American-born painter and designer E. McKnight Kauffer worked in England from about 1915 to 1940, where he became well-known as a top modern poster designer. He is particularly noted for his more than 150 designs for the London Underground. Kauffer was one of the first designers to apply fine-art principles to advertisements, seeing fine and commercial arts as harmonious rather than distinct. He advocated simplicity in poster design, noting the poster and message had be to seen and understood quickly by a fast-moving pedestrian or car passenger. This poster for a summer sale at Derry & Toms, the London department store, communicates the feeling of summer in a simple, colorful scene of sailboats created through a mix of Japanese woodcut, expressionist, and Fauvist influences. Derry & Toms was one of the most successful companies to follow in the tradition of modernist posters set by Kauffer in the London Underground Railway.

This object was donated by Mrs. Edward McKnight Kauffer. It is credited Gift of Mrs. E. McKnight Kauffer.

Our curators have highlighted 1 object that are related to this one.

Its dimensions are

74.9 × 48.6 cm (29 1/2 × 19 1/8 in.)

It is signed

Printed in orange script, lower right: E. McKnight Kauffer. "19"

Cite this object as

Poster, Summer Sale at Derry & Toms; Designed by Edward McKnight Kauffer (American, active England, 1890–1954); Client: Derry & Toms; England; lithograph; 74.9 × 48.6 cm (29 1/2 × 19 1/8 in.); Gift of Mrs. E. McKnight Kauffer; 1963-39-16

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Underground Modernist: E. McKnight Kauffer.

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If you would like to cite this object in a Wikipedia article please use the following template:

<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18447319/ |title=Poster, Summer Sale at Derry & Toms |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=16 April 2024 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>