Ellen Gallagher's Tube Map Cover References Moby Dick and London's Whaling Past

Transport for London has unveiled the 42nd commission in its Art on the Underground programme, featuring American artist Ellen Gallagher. Her work, 'Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish' (2026), will appear on the cover of the pocket Tube map. The piece references Pip, the Black cabin boy from Herman Melville's 'Moby Dick', and explores London's historical role in the whaling trade, with locations like Greenland Dock. Gallagher's multimedia practice, based between Rotterdam and New York, often draws on water, history, and mythology. The artwork depicts a whale skeleton intertwined with seaweed, evoking Harry Beck's abstracted Tube map from the 1930s. The commission continues a series that began in 2004, with past contributors including Yinka Shonibare, David Shrigley, Jeremy Deller, Cornelia Parker, Michael Landy, Paul Noble, Yayoi Kusama, Tracey Emin, Mona Hatoum, Rachel Whiteread, Hew Locke, Joy Gregory, Larry Achiampong, Phyllida Barlow, and Rita Keegan. The map will be available at stations, and posters will be displayed across the network.