Image of Gallery in South Kensington
Not currently on display at the V&A
On short term loan out for exhibition

Soaring to Success! - The Early Bird

Poster
1918-1919 (designed), 1918-1919 (printed), early 1919 (issued)
Artist/Maker
T. B. Lawrence Ltd. (printers)
Kauffer, E. McKnight (designer)
Place of origin
England (designed)
England (printed)
Great Britain (issued)

Edward McKnight Kauffer's poster is a masterpiece of progressive poster design. It advertises the launch of The Daily Herald, the Labour Party newspaper, on 31 March, 1919. The image is based on 'Flight', a woodcut (inspired by a Japanese print) made by Kauffer in 1916. Its geometric but dynamic abstraction of a flock of birds shows the influence of Vorticism, a movement with which Kauffer was closely associated.


Object details

Categories
Printed Pages & Sheets
Advertising
Access_to_Images 2003
Periodicals
Politics
Posters
Object type
Poster
TitleSoaring to Success! - The Early Bird (popular title)
Materials and techniques
Colour lithograph
Colour Lithography
Brief description
'Soaring to Success! - The Early Bird'. Colour lithograph poster advertising the re-launching of The Daily Herald, the Labour Party newspaper on 31 March 1919. Designed by Edward McKnight Kauffer, England, 1918-19.
Physical description
Colour lithograph poster advertising the re-launching of The Daily Herald, the Labour Party newspaper on 31 March 1919. The design has a yellow background with a geometric flock of birds (derived from a Japanese print) whose rendering reflect the strong influence of the English Vorticist style of the period. At the bottom of the poster is printed 'Soaring to Success! Daily Herald-The Early Bird', and the printer's monogram (TBL) is stamped in the bottom right corner.
Dimensions
  • Height: 297.7cm
  • Width: 152.2cm
  • Framed height: 310cm
  • Framed height: 165.5cm
  • Framed depth: 5cm
Measurements taken from: Summary Catalogue of British Posters to 1988 in the Victoria & Albert Museum in the Department of Design, Prints & Drawing. Emmett Publishing, 1990. 129 p. ISBN: 1 869934 12 1
Credit line
Given by Ogilvy Benson & Mather Ltd
Subject depicted
Birds
Literary referenceThe Daily Herald (newspaper)
Summary
Edward McKnight Kauffer's poster is a masterpiece of progressive poster design. It advertises the launch of The Daily Herald, the Labour Party newspaper, on 31 March, 1919. The image is based on 'Flight', a woodcut (inspired by a Japanese print) made by Kauffer in 1916. Its geometric but dynamic abstraction of a flock of birds shows the influence of Vorticism, a movement with which Kauffer was closely associated.
Bibliographic references
  • Baker, Malcolm, and Brenda Richardson (eds.), A Grand Design: The Art of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London: V&A Publications, 1999.
  • Summary Catalogue of British Posters to 1988 in the Victoria & Albert Museum in the Department of Design, Prints & Drawing. Emmett Publishing, 1990. 129 p. ISBN: 1 869934 12 1
  • The Poster King. E. McKnight Kauffer London: Estorick Collection of modern italian art, 2011.
  • The following information is from 'E. McKnight Kauffer : a designer and his public', by Mark Howarth-Booth (1979), revised and updated by V&A Publications in 2005: Born Edward McKnight in Great Falls, Montana, the artist adopted the name McKnight in gratitude to an American mentor who paid for the young man to travel to Paris to study painting. By 1914 he was in London and by 1915 he already had a commission for a poster from the London Underground. The origin of the designer's signature poster image, Soaring to Success!, was a 1916 print called Flight, a geometric flock of birds (derived from a Japanese print) whose rendering reflected the strong influence of the English Vorticist style of the period. First published in the English periodical Colour in 1917, the image was used in 1919 as an advertising poster to promote the Labour Party newspaper, the Daily Herald. According to family tradition the poster aroused Winston Churchill's attention, who sent for Kauffer with a view to commissioning a new flag for the Royal Air Force. Churchill's enthusiasm waned, however, when he learned that Kauffer was an American. Although the original design seems an inspired symbol of modernity, aspiration, and the union of industrial power with natural grace - thus typifying the ideals of a new, radical newspaper - it was conceived independently of client or product. The poster was bought for the Daily Herald campaign by Francis Meynell (proprietor of Nonesuch Press, for which Kauffer illustrated books), who designed and wrote the caption. Meynell considered the design "a symbol, in those days of hope, of the unity of useful invention and natural things." Soon to become a leader of the new profession of graphic design, Kauffer quickly gained international recognition. Subsequently, the design became emblematic of Kauffer and influenced many young designers. He presented the upper third of the poster (the "Flight" image) to The Museum of Modern Art, New York, which honoured him with a retrospective exhibition in 1937. This same motif was used as the catalogue cover of the V&A's 1955 Kauffer memorial exhibition, opened by his intimate friend and fellow Anglo-American, the poet T. S. Eliot. Although Kauffer (like Francis Meynell) was a member of the V&A's Advisory Council, this poster, which represents an unusually ambitious use of modernist design in British advertising, is one of many important twentieth-century objects acquired only retrospectively, in the 1970s. The V&A had collected Kauffer's work from 1916 onward through regular gifts from the Underground Electric Railways Co. of London (predecessor of London Transport), and Museum curators had every opportunity to acquire the poster from Kauffer in his lifetime. But it was only when V&A staff were invited to examine a cache of old posters in a basement in London's Kingsway - from campaigns undertaken by S. H. Benson Ltd., which had handled the Daily Herald campaign of 1919 - that Soaring to Success! finally entered the Museum collections. The company's successors gave the entire poster archive to the V&A, including the very rare complete version of this poster.
Other number
21/A12 - V&A microfiche
Collection
Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection
Accession number
E.35-1973

About this object record

Explore the Collections contains over a million catalogue records, and over half a million images. It is a working database that includes information compiled over the life of the museum. Some of our records may contain offensive and discriminatory language, or reflect outdated ideas, practice and analysis. We are committed to addressing these issues, and to review and update our records accordingly.

You can write to us to suggest improvements to the record.

Suggest feedback

Record createdNovember 5, 2003
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O85159/soaring-to-success---poster-kauffer-e-mcknight/
Download as: JSON