Posters of the Canadian Pacific

Gordon Turner is the author of Empress of Britain: Canadian Pacific’s
Greatest Ship and the editor of SeaFare, a quarterly newsletter on sea
travel.

No Canadian company was more conscious of the value of a well-designed
poster than Canadian Pacific. Between 1883 and 1972, the country’s
most famous company produced about 2500 posters. Three hundred of the
best, mostly full-page and all in colour, have been beautifully
reproduced in this volume.

The authors have chosen well, and their selections provide a
fascinating pictorial glimpse into the company’s history. There are
posters of trains, ships, planes, and hotels, as well as some on golf
and skiing. Early posters were strong on detail; the later ones
emphasized lifestyles. To this reviewer, those from the first 40 years
of the 20th century are the most visually appealing.

Each of the book’s seven chapters contains a short introduction that
puts the posters into historical and artistic context. Many of the
artists were anonymous. Still, a fair number have been identified, and
the book supplies brief biographical notes about their careers. Most
were, and are, unknown to the public at large—the Group of Seven’s
A.Y. Jackson is an exception—but their skills are obvious. If the
posters tended to present an idealized view of their subjects, well,
that was a commercial artist’s function. Bold colours, striking
angles, and exaggerated perspective all served their purpose.

Posters of the Canadian Pacific is an expanded and updated version of
Canadian Pacific Posters, 1883–1963, published in 1995. Modern
technology has diminished the role of the commercial artist, but a
single nostalgic glance at the pages of Choko and Jones’s admirable
new book makes one ache for its revival.