The Golden Age of Travel Posters

Overview

The 1930s were times of great hardship in Australia. The second half of the 1920s saw wheat and wool prices fall and greater competition for export markets. The Wall Street stock market crash in the United States, in 1929, had worldwide impacts, including in Australia. The national unemployment rate reached a staggering 32 per cent in 1932. Against this dire backdrop was a source of optimism, in the form of travel posters, produced largely during the 1930s (but also during the late 1920s and into the early 1940s), in what became known as the “golden age” of Australian poster design.

Travel posters commissioned by the newly-formed Australian National Travel Association (ANTA), the Victorian Railways, and other state-based tourism and railway boards, sought to promote tourism and recreation as both achievable and desirable – a series of simple joys. Commercial artists were tasked with encouraging Australians to “seek the winter sunshine”, to spend “lazy days” cruising the River Murray or to enjoy Queensland’s sunny beaches, with the added call to “see for yourself”, “go by train” and “take a Kodak”. Such posters were also produced to promote Australia as a sunny yet sophisticated travel destination for international travellers, including by the national airline, Qantas.

Three of the most popular and influential poster artists during this period, James Northfield (1887-1973), Percy Trompf (1902-1964) and Gert Sellheim (1901-1970), were colleagues at Melbourne’s Art Training Institute. While Sellheim’s designs were bold, graphic, minimalist and influenced by cubism, Trompf and Northfield, who were both born in small town Victoria, used “lush, painterly tones” and simplified realism to depict Australian landscapes, filled with happy holidaymakers enjoying the great Australian outdoors.

Technical specifications