Edward McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954) was the most celebrated graphic designer working in Britain in the twentieth century.Born in Montana, he left America before the first world war to travel throughout Europe absorbing the influences of the Cubistsand the German poster artist Ludwig Hohlwein. At the onset of war he settled in London. Seeing himself as a painter, he alliedhimself with the London Group and the Vorticists.He worked at Roger Fry's Omega Workshops with Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, and in 1915 was commissioned by FrankPick, then the publicity manager at London Underground. This was the beginning of a client-designer relationship that lastedthroughout the 1920s and '30s, only ending when Kauffer returned to New York in 1940. His posters, brilliantly coloured andstrikingly modern, struck London like a Cubist thunderbolt. Soon other clients, Jack Beddington at Shell, Sir Colin Anderson atthe Orient Shipping line, the Daily Herald (the instantly recognisable Birds in Flight poster), and the Post Office werecommissioning posters, brochures, book covers and illustrations. The V&A began collecting Kauffer's posters in 1915 and hewas given a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1937.E. McKnight Kauffer, Design contains over 150 illustrations, many from original