Frederick Cayley Robinson at the NRM

I was reading the National Gallery website this week and see that their new exhibition focuses on a group of paintings by Frederick Cayley Robinson, an artist who features in the NRM collections.

Original artwork for LMS Poster 'British Industries - Steel', 1924, Frederick Cayley Robinson


Cayley Robinson (1862-1927) is a little known British Symbolist who, as well as exhibiting at the Royal Academy, did commercial work for the railways. In 1924 he designed the poster ‘British Industries – Cotton’ for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. The poster features a group of women working at looms weaving cotton; they are lost in thought, working silently without interaction with one another. The laborious work becomes serene under a glow of yellow and blue. This is not the*harsh backbreaking*reality of work in a cotton mill but the artist’s idealised interpretation.

These are*features common to his painting, recurring symbolist*themes of idealisation and*dreamy contemplation which look strange to us now. In the context of the railway poster the anonymous*women become part of British Industry, elevated alongside Steel and Coal, which were also featured as posters. They*become part of the national workforce, served by the railways.

Cayley Robinson was Professor of Figure Composition and Decoration at the Glasgow School of Art which is perhaps not surprising; the sharp outline of his flattened figures show the illustrative qualities of his work while the varying poses of the women show off his skills in representing the human body, a popular device with artists throughout the ages.

LMS Poster 'British Industries - Steel', 1924, Frederick Cayley Robinson


The NRM collection holds both*the poster and the original poster artwork for ‘British Industries – Cotton’.


Filed under: Image collections