Capital views

London’s transport authority has a strong tradition of using illustration, from the first commissions of artists and designers early last century and the bold and adventurous posters of the 1920s and 1930s, to the Art on the Underground commissioning campaign in the 1980s and this decade’s bold series of London skylines by Paul Catherall, commissioned by London Transport Museum. One of the museum’s latest initiatives is A View of London, an exhibition curated in partnership with the Association of Illustrators. Coinciding with the Greater London Authority’s Story of London festival this June, the show presents work celebrating ‘the vibrancy of present-day London’. The work is in a variety of styles and media, including the large-scale, the digital, pen on paper and the 3D, and aims to appeal to all age groups, says AOL special projects manager Derek Brazell. Lizzy Mary Cullen’s A1-sized depiction of a journey on the 453 bus, from New Cross Gate to Trafalgar Square, is particularly intriguing (pictured bottom right). Cullen describes her work as a psycho-geographic map that combines reality with her own interpretations of the space, recording directional routes and a moment in time. The work from Claudia Boldt (top left) and Katharina Koall shows Londoners in all their guises – from the concierge to the gym bunny – and Bish (bottom left) evokes the atmosphere of Smithfields in an understated watercolour. The river, the Routemaster and the black cab all make many appearances, but the treatments are pleasingly different.