Speaker: Selling the Dream: The Art of Early New Zealand Tourism
103 Responses
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Hebe, in reply to
I must elaborate: the chiefs and their heads, portraits, images of taonga all are off my list of poster-appropriate. The generic Maori maiden is rather different -- to me it is Kiwiana, but question is where the line is crossed, and that precise positioning depends upon the intent of the artist/producer and upon where one sits on the cultural mores spectrum.
Which is all not to denigrate your book -- it looks alluring -- but to give another way of thinking about some areas of the subject matter.
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Lilith __, in reply to
Looks like i may have to rethink my enjoyment of the Maori chief in the dining room …..
I’ve been wondering how I would feel having one of my ancestors on a tea-towel, and I think not good. On a poster might be OK, if it was respectful. But not as an “example of a type”, ew.
Hebe:
The generic Maori maiden is rather different
But surely this is also a portrait of an unknown woman, and only generic because un-named?
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I must elaborate: the chiefs and their heads, portraits, images of taonga all are off my list of poster-appropriate.
Having started this by posting that image, I feel I have to disagree. I think it’s a resonant image, although I’d like to know more about it.
These things exist and have existed for a long time. They are what they are, I think.
Edit: The original is a silkscreen print produced by the Tourism Department some time between 1935 and 1940. The craft is beautiful.
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Hebe, in reply to
But surely this is also a portrait of an unknown woman, and only generic because un-named?
My thinking on this one: she looks like an ideal rather than a person (very well could be incorrect of course).
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Hebe, in reply to
I'm not saying anyone else should share my view. The fact that the posters have been out there for a long time does not make it right, or wrong. They are works of art in one sense, and I absolutely defend the authors' right to put them in their book, but they are also a product of a time of less cultural sensitivity, shall we way, than the present. So recording advertisements from 50 ,60 years ago in a book is quite different to reproducing a chief's image without context to hang on any old wall. It is not something I would want to do; other people feel differently, and I see no moral absolute here.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
the chiefs and their heads, portraits, images of taonga all are off my list of poster-appropriate.
How about these postage stamps from 1980? There was some controversy at the time about depicting the moko of the departed in that context, but the issue went ahead.
I don't know much about the artist R M Conly, apart from his being a prolific stamp designer, and an official artist with the air force. His mail carrier from 1955 is rather nice for its time.
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FletcherB, in reply to
How about these postage stamps from 1980? There was some controversy at the time about depicting the moko of the departed in that context, but the issue went ahead.
I recall a Maori commenter or possibly comedian, suggesting while it was culturally insensitive, he just thought it was great to have all the pakeha licking the maori back-sides for a change.
It "feels" like a Billy T comment, but I don't think he was on the scene in '80?
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Peter Alsop, in reply to
Thx for the thoughtful comments re the Chief, lets not forget he has a name, Topia Peehi Turoa. Ive gone full circle dwelling on this through the day for the sort of reasons Russell went into. It is what it is, from a period, right or wrong. We can look back at it and see some good things about it - well i can - and some not so good things. But is watching Schindlers List wrong? Dont think so. What i can say though is what a great decision not to use it as the book cover, mindful of sensitivity! and if we had of we would have spoken with the hapu (being more of a statement than a page in an historically focussed book). There is also a difference in my mind between display in context, a book about the period, versus a tea towel or t-shirt now, which is not a form of reproduction i can personally condone for any of these posters (accepting however that there is a role for some reproduction of art, as done in galleries throughout the world). Dare i also say it though, amongst the appropriate debate of cultural appropriateness, what a skilled piece of design! Two people that worked with Marcus King attributed this image to him, which I would bet on as well, though with some uncertainty I think i left the artist attribution as unknown in the book. Sorry for length and thx all for the thoughtful and interesting comments.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Thx for the thoughtful comments re the Chief, lets not forget he has a name, Topia Peehi Turoa. Ive gone full circle dwelling on this through the day for the sort of reasons Russell went into. It is what it is, from a period, right or wrong. We can look back at it and see some good things about it – well i can – and some not so good things.
Ah, sorry, didn't connect the name with the image we're talking about it. Man, he has quite a biography.
And yeah, I've been pondering it today and I still think that these works have an identity of their own. How long do we have to wait till it's okay to appreciate that poster for what it is?
That said, we've been patient about clearing rights for Barry Barclay's 1970s Tangata Whenua series for NZ On Screen. The second episode is still in the works while everyone's approval is sought and that's fine.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
There is also a difference in my mind between display in context, a book about the period, versus a tea towel or t-shirt now, which is not a form of reproduction i can personally condone for any of these posters (accepting however that there is a role for some reproduction of art, as done in galleries throughout the world).
Teatowels and shirts sem inappropriate but it seems odd to me to completely lock away works produced as commercial art.
Dare i also say it though, amongst the appropriate debate of cultural appropriateness, what a skilled piece of design!
That's it for me too. It has its own worth. And it's not as if it's a golliwog. It's beautiful.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
it seems odd to me to completely lock away works produced as commercial art.
Oh absolutely. These works should be in books and galleries and they should be talked about. They are all beautiful as art works in their own right.
But they're more than that. They're products of a particular time and social and political context. They carry with them the marks of certain attitudes that need to be discussed openly and honestly, because they haven't gone away, yet one thing we really need to do as a country and people/s is take a good, hard, honest look at our history.
ETA: Almost forgot. No, they're not golliwogs, but on t-shirts and tea towels as tacky souvenirs they do tend to take on a certain golliwog-ish aspect.
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Peter Alsop, in reply to
Well put Chris. You and Hebe are going to really like Mark Derby's essay when you read it.
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Hebe, in reply to
I look forward to it.
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Chris Waugh, in reply to
Clearly I am going to have to drop some very strong hints to my mother, my chief supplier of New Zealand books, about what an appropriate Christmas present would be.
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Love the NAC posters on page 30 of the sampler. Flying to Sydney by Solent would have been all right, but I always wanted to fly the Coral Route …
Tasman Empire Airways Ltd. Tasman Empire Airways Ltd: Go by Tasman Road, the fast smooth aerial highway. ZK-AME. Tasman Empire Airways Limited, incorporated in New Zealand. Head Office, Mechanics Bay, Auckland, New Zealand. Offset by C M Banks Ltd., Wellington [1946-1949]. Ref: Eph-D-AVIATION-1946-01. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://beta.natlib.govt.nz/records/23019132
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Flying to Sydney by Solent would have been all right . . .
Apparently the approach was really low - so low that the first sighting of Australia was the towering sandstone cliffs of Sydney, as described by Ruth Park in A Fence Around the Cuckoo. Unlike her earlier arrival by ship in indifferent weather, she remembered those welcoming sunlit cliffs as her first sighting of the elusive "Australia Felix".
When I lived on Sydney's Cremorne Point in the 70s the Lord Howe Island service still operated from Rose Bay. The Sunderland would sometimes glide overhead with the engines off as it made its night-time approach. You could see individual faces gazing from the lit windows.
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Peter Alsop, in reply to
Fascinating stuff. The chapter 'planes, trains & automobiles (& ships)' is a large one with some great images. It is easy to appreciate the significance of these transport modes as their time came and their efficiency evolved, such as the opening of the panama canal taking 6 days off the trip to NZ .... A major step fwd in our relative attractiveness to adventurous voyagers. The subject matter also lent itself to transport companies themselves becoming tourism promoters, often with blended imagery reflecting mode of travel and nz as a destination. The cover image of the book is a good example of this, 1941 we think, part of a series of indigenous women done by Pat Lawlor in the US for Pan American. 2 other posters in the series turned up in closing weeks and are shown in one of the international essays. I love the 'machine age' aura of these transport posters, a feature in international poster design as well (canvassed in the book by Nicho Lowry, a vintage poster specialist in New York).
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Went tonight to see a chap Gerald Phillips that silk screened many Tourist Department posters, a real craftsman. Told of the pain of the National Publicity Studio being shut down, and the wholesale trashing of much of the work …. Where oh where were the museum curators? One of his poster creations, for Eugene Collott as artist, required 19 hand cut stencils, incredibly intricate. Collot’s signature was also a stencil, and you would swear in the flesh it was hand written on with a fine nibbed Watermen pen …. The stencil cut is that refined and that good, the most curvacious, smooth curves you can image. Hand cut with a knife! These guys were good, real, real good – we overlook the technical craft in these images in today’s photoshop cloning retouching world.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Went tonight to see a chap Gerald Phillips that silk screened many Tourist Department posters, a real craftsman.
Wonderful to hear that there's someone who remembers how these things were made. So glad that you're able to record his experience.
Told of the pain of the National Publicity Studio being shut down, and the wholesale trashing of much of the work …. Where oh where were the museum curators?
I think it was 1979 or 1980 when I was given the heads up about a skipful of stuff sitting in the rain outside the Auckland City Mission. There was an enormous stash of silk-screened travel posters depicting mostly Asian parts of the British Empire, I took away a vanload when it had been already well picked over and found some beauties. The enormous See India depicting the ghats of Varanasi on fabric-backed paper is amazing, with easily 19 separate screens.
Collot’s signature was also a stencil, and you would swear in the flesh it was hand written on with a fine nibbed Watermen pen …. The stencil cut is that refined and that good, the most curvacious, smooth curves you can image. Hand cut with a knife!
Being old enough to remember the intricacies of frisket-cutting for airbrush work, as well as a bit of silk screen, I can relate to that. Of course you can still spend as much on a jewel-bearinged swivel knife as you can on a fine pen, but the craftsmanship, sometimes achieved with just a straight scalpel type blade, was often breathtaking.
These guys were good, real, real good – we overlook the technical craft in these images in today’s photoshop cloning retouching world.
We do, though those "guys" were working within a style, usually heavily derived from photography, that imposed a characteristic look upon their work. Apart from the refined stencil cutting, their real artistry lay in extracting the maximum impact from the range of tones at their disposal. While Photoshop's no less of a challenge to anyone's creativity, unlike the art of the serigraph the best work usually isn't apparent in the end result.
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Peter Alsop, in reply to
Joe, be great to chat more, about your experience and a new book I am starting work on 'selling prosperity: the art of early nz advertising', you are likely to have some experienced pointers for a younger obsessed enthusiast like me. If you feel able to chat more, pls contact me at peter@sellingthedream.co.nz (along with anyone else interested enough). The book also records a few memories of Alan Collins who was Art Director and MAnager ( top boss then) of the NPS, and there for about 40 years. I think the closure was a bit later than 1980, but would need to check my records to be sure. A shame for NZ history that the stories of design studios, incl the govt ones, are not yet better told, and prob past the optimal record point by a quite a few years now given the death of many of the key players .... Why it was so great to chat with Aan and Gerald.
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Geoff Lealand, in reply to
Pat Lawlor rings a bell: a couple of summers ago I picked up a tiny volume of Victorian verse, in Oamaru. Had his bookplate in it,
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I remember a big auction in Wellington in the mid-8os of original NZR posters. Still wish I had some disposable income then,
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Pat Lawlor rings a bell: a couple of summers ago I picked up a tiny volume of Victorian verse, in Oamaru. Had his bookplate in it,
A nice find. Unless there were two Pat Lawlors from that era though, I'd be inclined to check whether his name might have come to be associated with any artwork through his career as a writer and occasional publisher. To the best of my knowledge he was never an artist. I believe that he had a city office near the railway station in his later working years when he was NZ correspondent for Packer's Bulletin. I read a couple of his books on early Wellington years ago and enjoyed them immensely.
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Blame my befuddlement on a bout of flu. The Pat Lawlor I was referring to was the Wellington journalist/writer.
Another round of befuddlement: I was just cursing myself for missing Media 3 this morning, Then I remembered that we don't have a TV since we were burgled on Monday afternoon and some lowlifes stole our flat screen Sony!
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Sacha, in reply to
Bugger. Russell has a solution to your short-term need.
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