PBS Masterpiece Theatre

Year: ca. 1980s

30 x 46 inches

Printed in the 1980s, it advertises the PBS Masterpiece Theatre production of Testament of Youth, based on the autobiography by Vera Brittain. The caption reads: "A time when war overshadowed everything except hope."

Year: ca. 1980s

Size: 30 x 46 inches

Printed in the 1980s, the poster advertises the PBS Masterpiece Theater production of Sunset Song, based on the novel of the same name by Louis Grassic Gibbon. The caption reads: "Love my change, but the land is eternal: A drama set in the Scottish highlands in the shadow of war." It was a six-part series.

Year: 1979

Size: 30 x 46 inches

Printed in 1979, it advertises the 1979-1980 season of Masterpiece Theatre. Shown is the side of a building in a parking lot, covered with posters from all of PBS's favorite shows that year: Kean, Love for Lydia, Prince Regent, The Duchess of Duke Street, Disraeli, and Lillie.

Year: 1979

30 x 46 inches

This is an ORIGINAL FIRST PRINTING of this poster by Ivan Chermayeff. Printed 1979, it advertises the PBS/Masterpiece Theatre presentation of Kean. The caption reads: "A legend for his performances -- both on stage and off."

Year: 1985

Size: 30 x 46 in./76.2 x 116.8 cm

Printed in 1985, the poster advertises the PBS Masterpiece Theater production of Strangers and Brothers. The caption reads: "Outsiders inside the circles of power." It was a seven-part series hosted by Alistair Cooke.

Year: 1983

30 x 46 inches

Printed in 1983, the poster advertises the PBS Masterpiece Theater production of The Irish R.M. The caption reads: "A British Resident Magistrate who had to learn the lore to administer the law."

Year: ca. 1980

30 x 46 inches

Printed ca. 1980, it advertises the Masterpiece Theatre production of Lillie.

Year: 1981

Size: 30 x 46 in./76.2 x 116.8 cm

Condition: A

Printed in 1981, it advertises the PBS/Mobil presentation of A Town Like Alice.

Year: 1983

30 x 46 inches

The poster advertises the PBS Mystery! production of We, The Accused. The caption reads: "Two lovers on the run -- from murder." It was a five-part mini series starring Ian Holm.

Year: ca. 1980

Size: 36 x 40 in./91.4 x 101.6 cm

Condition: A

Printed c. 1980, it advertises the Masterpiece Theatre televised presentation of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

Year: 1980

Size: 30 x 46 inches

Printed ca. 1980, it was put out by PBS to advertise their Sunday night recaps of all the Great Moments in Sports. From hockey to baseball, football to horseracing, basketball to boxing, they covered all sports.

Year: 1985

Size: 30 x 46 in./76.2 x 116.8 cm

Condition: A

This is an ORIGINAL FIRST PRINTING of this poster designed by Pushpin studios.

It advertises the PBS Masterpiece Theatre production of All For Love.

The poster's design provides the dictionary definitions for each word in the title (all, for, love). The series itself came in five parts (five separate plays), and starred Joan Plowright and Alec McCowen.

Year: 1982

Size: 30 x 46 inches

Printed in 1982, the poster advertises the television adaptation of James Clavell's The Children's Story.

Year: 1985

30 x 46 inches.

Printed in 1985, this poster was created to advertise the televised airing of The Living Planet, an early environmental show on PBS.

Year: 1980.

Size: 30 x 46 inches

Masterpiece Theater began its tenth anniversary season (see small logo at right) with a serialized dramatization of Crime and Punishment. Chermayeff communicates the anguish of Dostoevsky's masterwork with the image of a blood-spattered prison cell wall glimpsed through a small barred window with the title scrawled in chalk above. Playing the tortured Raskolnikov was John Hurt, who had appeared as an unforgettably decadent Caligula in the I, Claudius series three years earlier.

Year: 1982.

Size: 30 x 46 inches

Printed in 1982, it promotes the PBS Masterpiece Theatre production I Remember Nelson. This Davis portrait of Kenneth Coltey playing Admiral Horatio Nelson emphasizes the heroic side of the man who was both a naval genius and a notorious figure of scandal.

Year: 1983.

Size: 30 x 46 inches

Printed in 1983, it promotes the PBS Masterpiece Theatre production of On Approval, a British comedy about two high-strung characters who, by the end of a snowy evening, manage to find love. The tagline reads: "everyone does it now–no one did it then" (referring to marriage).