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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 41 | October 1999


Exhibitions

From the days when it was alright to tan …

Travel Posters--'Wing your way ...'

The Library’s next exhibition, Follow the Sun: Australian Travel Posters from the 1930s to the 1950s will open on 13 November in the ground floor gallery and will continue until 30 January 2000.

Commissioned by organisations such as the Australian National Travel Association, P&O and Victorian Railways, travel posters were designed to promote tourism to and within Australia. The ways in which they present Australia as a desirable destination reveal a great deal about the prevailing values of those decades. The idea that our distinctiveness as a society—and holiday destination—was based largely on the uniqueness of the Australian flora, fauna and landscape is strongly projected by the posters.

The posters also reflect the art trends of the period—the tensions between ‘commercial’ and fine art, and between traditional and modern art. Styles range from ‘heroic masculine’, through ‘pictorial jazz’ and surrealism, to Olympian neo-classical. Reaching vast audiences, posters in particular often embodied a modernism so advanced that it would not have been displayed in more conservative museums.

The exhibition will incorporate more than 70 items designed by Australia’s foremost commercial artists of the era. It will also include exhibits provided by the National Archives and the National Gallery and will be complemented by an online version.

Well-known travel writer Susan Kurosawa will inject some fun into the exhibition when she talks and reads about her travels from her new book Coasting. A Year by the Bay, in the Southbank Restaurant on Sunday 28 November. Admission for that event is free.

Further information about the exhibition, associated events and merchandise is available if you call (02) 6262 1127.

Travel Posters--'The Anglers' paradise ...'
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Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: lkirwan@nla.gov.au

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