DESIGNER UNKNOWN IMPERIAL AIRWAYS / TRAVEL IN COMFORT. Circa 1935. 39 1/4x24 1/2 inches, 99 3/4x62 1/4 cm. Rembrandt Photogravure Ltd., London. Condition B+: repaired tears and staining in margins. A stylized, photographic poster of the Handley G-AAGX plane Hannibal taking off from Croydon Airport, the home base of Imperial Airways. Built in 1930, the Handley was the world's first four-engined aircraft and had a perfect safety record. Known for its outstanding comfort, the Hannibal was flown on the Cairo - Gaza - Baghdad - Basra - Karachi mail route until World War II. The Speedbird symbol (designed by Theyre Lee-Elliott) was not put into use until 1932. This is one in a series of at least four posters from the mid 1930s designed in this same style, with a sepia-toned photogravure image of one of the planes in the company's fleet and the innovative typographical configuration of stacking the text in blocks.
