This beautiful reproduction poster has been re-mastered from a 1930s travel poster advertising the vacation opportunities in Colorado, the Black Hills, and Utah. The image was painted by H.M. (Harry) Veenstra (1880-1977), a famous Denver artist who was best known for his flattened portrayals of the Rocky Mountains used in posters promoting rail travel.
The poster shows campers, boaters, and auto tourists enjoying the outdoors at a mountain lake surrounded by tall snow-covered peaks. The poster encourages tourists to travel to these vacation sites by train.
The vibrant colors and detail of this classic image have been painstakingly brought back to life to preserve a great piece of history.
The high-resolution image is printed on heavy archival photo paper, on a large-format, professional giclée process printer. The poster is shipped in a rigid cardboard tube, and is ready for framing.
The 13"x19" and 24”x36” formats are excellent image sizes that look great as a stand-alone piece of art, or grouped as a visual statement. These posters require no cutting, trimming, or custom framing, and a wide variety of these frames are readily available at your local craft or hobby retailer, and online.
A great vintage print for your home, shop, or business!
HISTORY OF THE “TRAVEL BY TRAIN” CAMPAIGN & TRAVEL POSTERS
THE “TRAVEL BY TRAIN” CAMPAIGN
In the 1930s, railroad passenger service was being challenged by the increasingly affordable automobile. To combat this challenge, a coalition of nearly thirty railroads pooled their advertising resources and introduced the “Travel by Train” campaign. The cooperative effort resulted in nearly a dozen posters that depicted a variety of U.S. destinations.
TRAVEL POSTERS
With beautiful graphics and sizes that can be comfortably displayed in homes and businesses, travel posters have become popular with collectors, interior designers, and home decorators. Reproduction travel posters provide an excellent option to the high cost of originals, allowing anyone to beautifully decorate a space with a boundless variety of art and graphics.
Travel posters became a popular advertising medium in the late 1800’s for the burgeoning travel industry that served an increasingly mobile population. The posters used beautiful art to summon travelers from near and far to visit a country, city, or event.
Following advancements in color lithography in the late 1800’s, railroads began producing art-oriented posters to promote ticket sales on their trains. Travel posters were soon adopted by steamship lines, hotels, resorts, and later airlines, with some employing famous graphic artists to lure travelers with scenes of romance, beauty, adventure and leisure.
In the early 1900’s, travel posters were more Art Nouveau-influenced, and Art Deco became the prevalent influence from 1925 to 1939. Travel posters enjoyed the height of their popularity from the 1920s through the 1950s.
Today, travel posters evoke fond memories and dreams of exotic faraway places, adventure, relaxation, and simpler times. They have become highly collectable art, with some original posters selling for tens of thousands of dollars at auctions.
