Title: We're off to the Pantomime
Artist: Mabel Lucie Attwell
Published by: Underground Electric Railway Company Ltd
Year: 1913
Size: 510mm x 760mm (20x30 inches)
Mabel Lucie Attwell, the famous illustrator was commissioned by the Underground Group of companies to produce a poster of Pantomimes. Mabel Lucie Attwell was a butcher's daughter, ninth out of ten children. She grew up drawing fairies and children from her imagination. She never finished formal education, yet the first pictures she gave an agent sold overnight. Working in watercolour and pen and ink, she began by illustrating children's books for W&R Chambers. By 1911 she was producing postcards and greetings cards with chubby toddlers based on her daughter Peggy. They were very popular and a commercial success, though often panned by the critics as sentimentalising childhood. Throughout her career she also produced calendars, wall plaques, and figurines.