Tube

Enid Marx once pondered ‘whether postage stamps are fine or industrial art. In my view the question rests on the quality of a design rather than its purpose. It is generally agreed, for example, that the work of Thomas Bewick is fine art, even when it is merely the engraving of a “trade card”.’ Marx was a textile designer, book illustrator, lino-cutter, wood-engraver, poster illustrator and, yes, postage-stamp designer (‘The calling card of a nation’, as she put it) and in all these things, the quality was unquestionable. Her unique, memorable designs were absorbed, unknowingly, by any number of people. Her best-known work was the sturdy moquette fabric she designed for seats on London Underground in the 1930s.