Watercolour: The Real Traffic Problem

Producer: Fougasse; Bird, Cyril Kenneth

Date: 1931-1935

Accession number: 66.60/3

Measurements: 38.1 x 26.7 cm

London's first traffic lights were installed in Piccadilly Circus in 1926. Cartoonist Cyril Bird pokes fun at the similarities between traffic lights and neon advertising during the early 1930s. Cars drive down a gaudy London street at night. The accompanying caption reads: 'The Real Traffic Problem: what do you do when Storm's Port says stop, but Spot's Pills say go?' This may have been produced for the magazine Punch, which often used Bird's work. Bird used the name Fougasse, a type of French mine, to avoid confusion with another Punch contributor, W Bird.