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Image Not Available for Australia Riding a Catamaran Great Barrier Reef
Australia Riding a Catamaran Great Barrier Reef
Image Not Available for Australia Riding a Catamaran Great Barrier Reef

Australia Riding a Catamaran Great Barrier Reef

Publisher
Date1960s
Object number00039724
NamePoster
MediumColour lithograph on paper
DimensionsOverall: 987 x 641 mm
ClassificationsPosters and postcards
Credit LineANMM Collection
DescriptionThis Australian National Travel Association poster promotes Australia as an idyllic tourist destination to an international audience. ANTA's later poster commissions in the 1960s and 1970s used a simple formula of a photograph reproduced with added text rather than the richer graphics created by their poster artists up to the 1950s.HistoryDestinations were central themes to most travel posters commissioned by the Australian National Travel Association and featured iconic Australian locations. The exotic waters of Australia, in particular the Great Barrier Reef are featured repeatedly as appealing motifs of Australian identity. In 1929 the Australian National Tourism Authority, based in Melbourne, commissioned journalists and graphic artists who had worked for the Victorian National Railways Betterment Board to produce posters for every Australian state. Emphasis was placed on tourist sites and regions such as the Great Barrier Reef and the tropics of North Queensland. The winter migration of tourists from Victoria and New South Wales to the warmer climate of Queensland proved a lucrative market. Posters were the main promotion medium for the ANTA, which developed extensive network overseas and had representatives in England, the United States and later New Zealand, Canada, India, China, Japan and France. ANTA ceased operating in 1974.SignificanceThis work represents the later phase of poster promotions from the Australian National Travel Association which ended ANTA's longstanding practice of commissioning original poster designs from artists.