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Australia Land of Tomorrow

Artist Joe Greenberg (1923 - 2007)

Maker Commonwealth Department of Information

Date1948

Object number00029428

NamePoster

MediumColour lithograph on paper

DimensionsImage: 986 x 730 mm
Overall: 1018 x 764 mm, 0.05 kg
Sheet: 1018 x 164 mm
Display Dimensions: 1018 x 764 mm

ClassificationsPosters and postcards

Credit LineANMM Collection

Terms

DescriptionThis brightly-coloured poster by Joe Greenberg was one of 75,000 produced by the Commonwealth Department of Information in 1948 to extol Australia's virtues in European migrant camps, hostels and immigration centres. With its storybook style illustration, it highlighted the benefits of raising children in Australia. The rural idyll depicted is distinctly European and seems to suggest a less confident Australia - unsure of promoting its uniqueness to the world. HistorySince Federation in 1901 the Australian Government has produced a range of evocative and emotive posters to encourage migration to Australia. In the early 1900s, government advertising campaigns emphasised the necessities of land settlement and the virtues of a white Australia. This campaign intensified in the years after World War II, as the government expanded its advertising market to European nations in a bid to 'populate or perish'. Posters promoted Australia as a place of opportunity and prosperity - the land of tomorrow.SignificanceThe poster relates to a significant period in Australia's post-World War II immigration history, when the Australian Government aimed to bolster the population with European immigrants in a bid to 'populate or perish'.

The NSW Migration Heritage Centre states the “creator of this poster, Joe Greenberg, was told later by a Czech migrant that it had been displayed in all the migrant camps in Europe, and had influenced him to come to Australia.”