Trading Places: Australian Travel Posters 1909–1990
Dates:
6 March – 11 May 1991
Artists:
Max Angus, Douglas Annand, Sir John William Ashton, Julian Richard Ashton, Richard Beck, Joseph Booker, Ernest Buckmaster, L.J. Burke, William Bustard, Pina Cancellieri, Adrienne Chisholm, Brian Clinton, Sir William Dobell, Ken Done, James Flett, Stuart Owen Fox, Harold Freedman, Anne Graham, Philip Gray, Betty Greenhatch, M. Harrold, Jo Anne Hook, Walter Jardine, Harry Kelly, B.R. Linklater, Eileen Mayo, Moody, James Northfield, Tom Purvis, Jules Henry Roy Rousel, Raphael T. Roussel, William N. Rowell, Bob Seal, Gert Sellheim, Martin Sharp, Shattock, Ron Skate, Trewin, Percy Trompf, Warner, Harry J. Weston, Rhys Williams, C. Dudley Wood
Curators:
Jenepher Duncan and Peter Spearritt
Opened by:
John Schaap (Managing director and CEO, Australian Airlines Limited)
Location:
Monash University Gallery
Monash University, Clayton Campus
About the exhibition
Trading Places featured nearly 120 works that trace the evolution of the Australian travel poster as a visual form—from the commemorative posters of the early twentieth century, through the bold graphic designs of the 1930s and ’40s, to the eventual dominance of photography as the preferred medium. In doing so, the exhibition illuminated the visually rich and largely overlooked history of the travel poster within Australia’s tourist industry.
The significance of the exhibition lay in its recognition of travel advertising as a serious subject of study. Despite serving as one of the most potent tools for marketing to international tourists since the 1880s, it was not until the 1970s that cultural institutions began to consider travel posters worthy of scholarly attention. Writing for the exhibition catalogue, guest curator Professor Peter Spearritt, then Director of the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University, asserts: ‘Once simply sheets of paper pasted onto railway hoardings or advertising boards in travel agencies, the more striking of these travel posters are now worth thousands of dollars and will continue to appreciate on the grounds of image quality, composition, printing technique and scarcity.’
Acknowledgements
This exhibition was sponsored by Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, for the ‘Life. Be In It.’ program.
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Image: James Northfield, Australia for Sunshine and Romance c.1936, colour lithograph, 49.3 x 63 cm. Weetman collection, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne. Photo courtesy of State Library of Victoria