The latest (May 2010) issue of Canal Boat magazine has an article by Hugh McKnight about old posters which depicted waterway scenes. With one exception they're all from the first half of the twentieth century, and they're all works of art.
Inconveniently they are not on the magazine's website, and I'm not sure about the legality of photographing and reproducing some examples here, so this will be that very rare post from me: one with no pictures. (Oh, all right, just the one of the magazine cover.)
To the title of this post. The first poster the magazine shows is of narrow boat Sarah in an 1875 scene painted by Cuthbert Hamilton Ellis in 1951. The boat is being towed by an out-of-frame horse on the north Oxford Canal; a steam train passes on the adjacent railway line at Brinklow. The poster is an example of "carriage art", displayed originally in railway coaches.
On the next page is a reproduction of a 1929 poster advertising the charms of Chertsey; and facing it is an UndergrounD one publicising the 1913 Boat Race (book to Shepherd's Bush and thence by Tram to Hammersmith, Putney or Turnham Green). Mr. McKnight writes, "Limited use of colour and a concentration on the essential subject matter to the exclusion of all else has produced an image that feels modern even today."
So that's two posters for Sarah and one for James and Amy.
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