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London Transport Posters: from Publicity Materials to Museum Exhibits

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London Transport Posters: from Publicity Materials to Museum Exhibits London Transport posters: from publicity materials to museum exhibits Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leicester by Amornchat Sermcheep School of Museum Studies University of Leicester November 2020 Abstract London Transport posters: from publicity materials to museum exhibits by Amornchat Sermcheep This PhD thesis traces the museum’s repurposing of publicity posters into museum exhibits from a material cultural perspective. Its aim is to understand how the values and meanings of advertising materials transform as their functions and purposes are altered. In so doing, this thesis employs object itineraries as the theoretical framework, using the London Transport Museum’s collection as a case study. This thesis argues that the values and meanings of London Transport posters change but each point in the transformation is integrally connected to one another. Through the examination of the purposes and narratives of poster exhibitions and the curating process, the change and connection in values and meanings are manifested at both the visual and material levels, such as within a poster design as well as across different material forms. By examining the criteria for selecting London Transport posters for display and their materialities, this thesis also reveals the diversity of the material forms bearing a single poster design and provides insight into the impact of object materialities, especially their multiplicity, on both collection management and exhibition making. Further, this thesis engages the primary data with debates about the notions of object originality and authenticity. It argues that museums interact with original objects in certain ways in order to maintain, manifest and highlight the authenticity of these objects. This is mainly to serve the museum’s knowledge shaping purpose. Despite that, this thesis concludes that museums should not consider themselves superior to material objects. Instead, the thesis proposes a view of museums as space for human-thing interactions. Overall, while focussing on advertising materials, the research provides new insight into the nature of museum objects more generally as well as humans’ interactions with them. This thesis therefore contributes to various material culture-related academic domains including critical museum studies, anthropology and archaeology. 1 Acknowledgements Throughout this PhD journey, I have received tremendous support and guidance. Firstly, I would like to give sincere thanks to my supervisor, Professor Sandra H Dudley, for her insight, inspiration and encouragement. I would also like to thank my second supervisor Dr Isobel Whitelegg for her advice, especially during the final stage of writing. I am extremely grateful to the London Transport Museum for granting me permission to conduct research and have access to their collections. I would also like to especially thank Evdoxia Apostolou, Anna Renton and Stelina Kokarida for kindly giving their time and wisdom, especially during field research. My sincere thanks go to my sponsor, the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation Thailand (formerly the Office of Higher Education Commission) for funding my PhD study and the Royal Thai Embassy UK for their assistance all along. I would like to acknowledge the staff and my PhD colleagues at the School of Museum Studies for their vital help and inspiration. I would especially like to thank Christine Cheesman and Gurpreet (Bob) Ahluwalia for their administrative assistance, as well as my close friends Dr Jingyu Peng and Yahao Wang for always being supportive. I am also most indebted to my dearest family: my mother, father, sisters and grandmother, as well as the two kindest people, Dr Chatwiboon Peijsel and Dr Yi Wen Tan, for their love, care and support outside my research. Finally, I would like to give thanks to God for making my PhD life such a blessed experience. 2 Table of contents Preamble ..................................................................................................................... 11 Research summary ...................................................................................................... 12 Why posters? ............................................................................................................... 13 Contextualising the case study .................................................................................... 22 Thesis structure ........................................................................................................... 33 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 36 Study design ................................................................................................................ 36 Pilot study: a quantitative database analysis of museum-themed poster prints and artworks in the London Transport Museum’s online collection .................................. 40 Units of analysis ........................................................................................................... 62 Preparation prior to fieldwork ..................................................................................... 64 Data collection procedures .......................................................................................... 67 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 68 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 69 Entering the field: sources of evidence ....................................................................... 69 Making sense of evidence: data analysis ..................................................................... 82 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 101 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 103 From object biography to object itineraries: theoretical framework ........................ 104 London Transport posters’ changing values and meanings at the visual level .......... 115 London Transport posters’ changing values and meanings at the material level...... 129 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 150 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 152 3 Types of objects based on the same poster design ................................................... 153 Influences of materialities on the changes in the values and meanings of London Transport posters ...................................................................................................... 161 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 193 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 196 Object authenticity .................................................................................................... 197 Knowledge creation: museums’ purpose of repurposing objects ............................. 211 Museums as space for human-thing interactions ..................................................... 224 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 234 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 237 Research outcomes ................................................................................................... 238 Research contributions (beyond the museum context) ............................................ 243 Research limitations .................................................................................................. 246 Future research ......................................................................................................... 248 Afterword .................................................................................................................. 251 Appendix 1: case study protocol ............................................................................... 253 Appendix 2: data collection form (Level 1 Questions) ............................................... 257 Appendix 3: Interview schedule ................................................................................ 265 4 List of figures Figure 1.1 The exhibition The art of persuasion: wartime posters by Abram Games held at the National Army Museum, London, in 2019 © National Army Museum (Image courtesy of the National Army Museum, London).......... 20 Figure 1.2 Buckingham Palace (1936a; left) and Westminster from the Thames (1936b; right) by Edward McKnight Kauffer © TfL from the London Transport Museum collection .................................................................... 23 Figure 1.3 Two posters by Edward McKnight Kauffer, Buckingham Palace and Westminster from the Thames, displayed on the timetable and map/poster board outside East Grinstead country area London Transport bus garage (Tropical Press 1936) © TfL from the London Transport Museum collection ..................................................................................................................
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