Qantas logo creator Gert Sellheim put Australia on tourism map

The man who created the Qantas kangaroo logo helped put the nation on the world map in other ways.

Sunshine and Surf, Australia (c 1936) by Gert Sellheim. National Library of Australia

From the late 1920s, Australia first began to seriously promote itself to the world by using the beach, sun, and surf as motifs. Catchphrases such as “For sun and surf” and “Sunshine and surf” were plastered across many of the eye-catching advertisements and posters of this ­period.

The campaign to use the archetypes of beach culture emphasised an appealing and idealised aspect of Australian life. The message was powerful and compelling.

This approach to attracting international tourists was the brainchild of the peak semi-government tourism group the Australian National Travel Association, which was set up in July 1929 with a mission to “place Australia on the world’s map and keep it there”. It did this by displaying artist-designed posters in places such as London, San Francisco, Bombay and Wellington.

The tourism association was greatly helped in its mission by one of this country’s most influential graphic designers, Gert Sellheim. He created innovative designs that broke from the more conventional illustrations. Instead, he favoured a bold, modernist style, often using photomontage and flat areas of colour, and juxtaposing hand-lettering and commercial type. His iconography also created symbols of national identity, such as the blonde girl in a swimsuit at the beach. Moreover, he was responsible for the flying kangaroo logo for Qantas, which he created in 1947.

Sellheim was brilliantly adept at creating enduring symbols of Australian identity but he was actually born in Estonia in 1901 to German parents. He studied architecture before migrating to Perth in 1926. Initially, because his architectural qualifications weren’t recognised, he worked as a farm labourer but in 1930 he moved to Melbourne, where he set up an architecture and design practice.

During World War II, because of his German heritage, he was classified as an enemy alien and was interned as a Nazi sympathiser even though he claimed to abhor Hitler’s views, according to his biographer Peter Spearritt. Following his release, he applied for Australian citizenship and moved in 1947 to Sydney, where he continued his design work for clients such as Qantas. During this time he was particularly keen on using Aboriginal motifs, as in his prize-winning design of the 1948 two-shilling Aboriginal Art stamp. Sellheim died in 1970.

Several of his posters are on display at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, as part of an exhibition, The Sell: Australian Advertising 1790s-1990s.

Curator Susannah Helman shows me the posters and we stop before a particularly striking work, Sunshine and surf, Australia, dated from around 1936.

It certainly grabs one’s attention with its strong diagonal composition, bold lettering, and the repetition of the three girls diving into the ocean. The girls’ bronzed suntans are highlighted by the white of their swimming costumes and caps. There are prominent areas of flat colour — the yellow of the sand and the blue of the sea with its white ripples for the waves.

Helman says Sellheim is considered one of the great poster artists of the 20th century in Australia, and his work continues to influence the way this country is depicted and imagined.

“He was doing something different that others weren’t,” says Helman.

“Unlike other artists of his generation he brought something new, and in this poster, Sunshine and surf, Australia, he draws upon art deco motifs and an art deco sensibility in terms of the lettering.

“It is a poster that appeals to me very much ­because it offers that classic version of sand and sea. He has created a poster that people still love.”

Gert Sellheim, Sunshine and surf, Australia (c. 1936). Australian National Travel Association. Printer Troedel & Cooper. Pictures Collection, National Library of Australia. On display in The Sell: Australian Advertising 1790s-1990s, Exhibition Gallery, National Library of Australia, Canberra, until April 25.