Spectacular vintage poster featuring a pictorial bird's-eye view of Cambridge, beautifully designed and in vibrant colour. Published by British Railways to promote the city as a tourist destination. Quad-royal size.



The artist, Kerry Lee, chose to ignore relative scale which allowed him to depict the city's most important and iconic buildings prominently while shrinking or ignoring any uninteresting buildings. In the centre of the poster and given the greatest prominence is King's College Chapel. The River Cam runs along the lower edge with each of the city's famous bridges carefully illustrated. On the far right is the Fitzwilliam Museum and in the upper-right is Downing College. Along the upper edge are Emmanuel, Christ's, and Jesus Colleges. On the far left are St. John's College with the famous Bridge of Signs, and Magdalene College. The crests of all of the colleges are arranged around the outer edge of the map.



This is one of a series of poster designs created for British Railways by the mid-century poster artist Kerry Lee: the other cities include London, Oxford, Norwich, Chester, and Liverpool. This poster is known to have been first published in 1957, though a printer's reference in the lower left ('P.P.1168) suggests a printing date of Nov. 1968 for this example.



Laid down on archival linen. Printed colour. [Tube] [CAMBS406]