The poster as we know it dates back no further than 1870, for it was then that the perfection of techniques in colour lithography first made mass production possible. Yet in little more than a hundred years it came to be recognized as a vital art form, attracting artists at every level, from painters like Toulouse-Lautrec and Mucha to theatrical and commercial designers, and ranging in style from Art Nouveau, Symbolism, Cubism and Art Deco to the formality of the Bauhaus and the deliberate incoherence of the hippies and other underground movements of the 1960s.

John Barnicoat's entertaining and informative book surveys poster art from its beginnings and shows that the poster has contributed much to the history of modern art.