How Bergenske Dampskibsselskab sold Norway to the world through travel posters

Det Bergenske Dampskibsselskab – the Bergen Steamship Company, later known internationally as the Bergen Line – used striking travel posters to promote Norway, winter sports, fjord cruises and its passenger routes from Britain. Created by both Norwegian and international artists, these rare posters form a remarkable visual record of how Norway was marketed to foreign travellers during the twentieth century.

Founded in Bergen in 1851, Det Bergenske Dampskibsselskab grew into one of Norway's most important shipping companies. Its passenger services connected Bergen with Britain and continental Europe, while its cruise ships carried travellers deep into the Norwegian fjords and eventually to destinations far beyond Norway.

BDS understood early that selling a journey meant selling an image of the destination itself. Its posters presented Norway as a land of dramatic scenery, winter sports, modern transport and elegant travel.

The British market was particularly important, and many posters were produced specifically to attract travellers from Newcastle and other parts of Britain. Some focused on practical advantages such as the shortest sea route, railway connections and inclusive fares. Others abandoned timetables almost entirely and instead offered an idealised vision of snow-covered mountains, fjords, cruise ships and Norwegian landscapes.

BDS also worked with a surprisingly international group of artists and designers. British marine painters, Dutch graphic artists and Norwegian designers all contributed to the visual identity of the company, producing posters that ranged from traditional pictorial illustration to bold modernist design.

The first four posters shown below belong to the earliest and rarest examples in the PosterTeam collection. Together they show how B&N Line advertising moved beyond simply promoting the Newcastle–Bergen crossing, presenting Norway as a destination for winter holidays, fjord cruises and extended journeys through Scandinavia.

Seen together, these posters reveal how dramatically the visual language of Bergen Line advertising changed over the decades. The early B&N Line posters were often rich in information. Routes, sailing times, railway connections, fares and organised holidays all competed for the traveller's attention. Norway was attractive, but getting there quickly and conveniently was an equally important part of the message.

As tourism developed, the posters increasingly allowed the image to do the selling. Ships became powerful symbols in their own right, set against monumental mountains and deep blue fjords. The British artist Frank Henry Mason, one of the leading marine and railway poster artists of his generation, created an almost theatrical vision of a Bergen Line vessel surrounded by the Norwegian landscape. Dutch artist Jan Lavies took the idea even further, reducing the fjord to dramatic planes of rock, water and colour in his striking poster for cruises aboard Stella Polaris and Meteor.

BDS also drew on a new generation of Norwegian commercial artists. Finn Alfsen had studied in Britain and, while still a young artist, won a Shell advertising poster competition in London in 1928. After returning to Bergen he joined Bergens Annonce-Byrå, or BAB, as a designer and advertising consultant. His work for BDS reflects the increasingly bold graphic language of the 1930s. One of his BDS designs was reproduced in Commercial Art / Art and Industry in December 1934, where Alfsen was credited as the artist.

The ships themselves could also provide all the drama required. Posters for Vega and Venus transformed speed and modernity into graphic images: streamlined vessels crossing the North Sea, maps reduced to simple outlines and journey times made part of the design. A 1938 BAB poster proclaimed that Vega and Venus crossed the North Sea eight times a week, with the England route taking just eighteen hours.

After the Second World War, the emphasis shifted again. One of the outstanding artists employed by the Bergen Steamship Company was the British marine and poster artist Harry Hudson Rodmell (1896–1984). His 1948 Norway by Bergen Steamship Company poster depicts the rebuilt M/S Venus, which returned to service after the war. The image also appeared in the company's 1948 calendar.

In the later Bergen Line posters, however, the ship sometimes becomes secondary to the destination. Huge letters spelling NORWAY, stylised maps, waterfalls, mountains, traditional buildings and rural scenes present an instantly recognisable idea of the country. The journey is still there, but increasingly it is Norway itself that is being sold. Pat Nevin's colourful 1950s Norway by Bergen Line is a particularly clear example, combining a fjord, waterfall, wooden cabin, horse-drawn carriage and distant ship in a deliberately idyllic vision of the country.

The Madeira & Canaries for Sunshine poster provides an appropriate counterpoint. By this stage Bergen Line advertising was no longer confined to bringing foreign travellers to Norway. The same company that had promoted winter sports and the shortest sea route from Newcastle to Bergen could now tempt travellers with palm trees, flowers and sunshine far to the south.

What makes this group particularly special is that it is not assembled from reproductions or images gathered from different archives. Every poster illustrated in this article is, or has previously been, in the PosterTeam collection. Some have since found new homes with collectors, while others remain with PosterTeam today. Several are exceptionally rare, and bringing them together offers an unusual opportunity to see how one Norwegian shipping company presented itself – and Norway – through decades of changing graphic design.

From the detailed B&N Line advertisements of the early twentieth century to the bold modernism of the 1930s and the colourful destination posters of the post-war years, these works document much more than the history of a shipping company. They show how artists and designers from Norway and abroad helped shape an international image of Norway: accessible, adventurous, modern and spectacularly beautiful.

The Bergen Line carried the passengers. Its posters helped create the desire to travel.

Explore more: View all BDS – Bergenske Dampskibsselskab posters currently in the PosterTeam collection.