Art on the Underground

[2][1][3] From the late 1900s, London Underground's Managing Director Frank Pick began commissioning leading artists and designers to work on poster campaigns for the rapidly expanding network.

[7] In the late 1980s, London Underground began commissioning artists as part of a programme to fill unsold advertising space with artwork.

[1][16] Since 2000, an entire disused platform at Gloucester Road station has used as a backdrop for temporary exhibitions including sculptures, murals or photographs.

[9] The first piece commissioned for Gloucester Road was an Elephant sculpture by Kendra Haste, which is now on permanent display at Waterloo tube station.

[19] In 2018, British artist Heather Phillipson filled the 80m platform with egg sculptures and video screens in an installation titled "my name is lettie eggsyrub", to critical acclaim.

[35] In August 2023, a series of sound commissions by Art on the Underground was launched in a new strand of collaborative community engagement; the first work, by multidisciplinary artist Shenece Oretha, Route Words: Where are our voices aloud?, centred on the UK's oldest Black bookshop and publisher, New Beacon Books in Finsbury Park, and was shared via a poster campaign across the Tube network with a QR code allowing customers to listen to the audio on their journeys.

[36][37][38] Featuring extracts from the texts of Erna Brodber, Lorna Goodison, John La Rose, Kamau Brathwaite and Dennis Mitchell, writers published by New Beacon, the sound piece demonstrated the collective force of word and voice, "showcasing writing that speaks to the importance of space and language, to a range of communities, their histories and collective futures.

[39][40] Other recent permanent pieces include "Diamonds and Circle" permanent works "in situ", a vast artwork in Tottenham Court Road by French conceptual artist Daniel Buren,[41][42] "Beauty < Immortality", a memorial to Frank Pick by Langlands & Bell in Piccadilly Circus[43] and "Pleasure's Inaccuracies" by Lucy McKenzie at Sudbury Town.

[2] More than 35 different designs have been produced, from a wide variety of British and international artists such as Rachel Whiteread, Yayoi Kusama, Tracey Emin and Daniel Buren.