Percy Trompf

Percival Albert Trompf (1902-1964), was an Australian commercial artist, best known for his travel posters, books, advertising hoardings and pamphlets promoting the nation's tourist industry and Australian and international corporations and companies. His colour lithography was recognised as distinctive during his career and since, Art Deco in style, and innovative in its use of flat colour. Some of his designs depicted historical events, including the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge[1] and Captain Cook's landing at Botany Bay, and advanced the iconic value of Australian destinations including the 'Outback', The Great Barrier Reef, and national identity and activities of sun-worship, surfing and bushwalking, using a visual language of modernity, promotion and consumerism. In turn his imagery has since become valued for its nostalgic evocation of the early mid-century and his posters have become collectible 'national treasures' that are frequently exhibited.

Percy Trompf (c.1930s) For a Different Holiday, Great Barrier Reef, Colour lithograph

Early life

Trompf was born on 30 May 1902 in Beaufort, Victoria, the ninth child of Henry Alexander Trompf, a fruiterer, and his wife Catherine Amelia,[2] née Elliott.[3] His family later moved to Ballarat, and he was educated at Sebastopol Primary School. He developed an enduring interest in cricket and sang and competed as a member of a church choir.[4] He became one of the earliest students at the Ballarat School of Mines' Ballarat Technical Art School where he left with his certificate in 1917,[5][6][3][7] and where he was remembered in 1930, when his posters were exhibited there, as "one of Ballarat's most notable old boys".[8]

Career

In 1923,[9] Trompf began designing confectionery boxes and wrappings for Giles & Richards, a Melbourne firm of commercial artists,[3] before setting up his own studio in Little Collins Street, painting and designing thousands of advertising posters, usually of 25 x 40 inches (64 x 102 cm) format, and 24-sheet advertising hoardings, for which Trompf supervised all stages of production, including the lithographic printing.[10] He also designed books and pamphlets throughout his career.

An early client was Charles Holmes (later editor of Walkabout, also a client) chairman of the Victorian Railways Betterment and Publicity Board under Harold Clapp.[3][11] Holmes had recognising the successful use of poster advertising by the London Underground's Frank Pick, and hired Trompf for a similar campaign in the 1920s.[12][13][14][15][16][17][18]

By 1931, Trompf was well known as a poster artist.[19] "Scuu" in Smith's Weekly of August 8, 1931, rhetorically asked;

"Does commercial art pay? Well, ask Percy Trompf, who has just had another striking 'Eat More Oranges' poster accepted by Harold Clapp to brighten Victorian railway stations. So many of Percy’s posters are already on railway hoardings that many people believe he is on the permanent payroll. The A.N.T.A. have also adopted his designs—notably the Landing of Captain Cook and the Sydney Harbour Bridge—while the Orient S.S. Co. has just awarded him first prize in the competition to improve its posters"[20]

Clients included the Canadian Pacific Railway,[21] Bryant & May, Palmolive, and the magazine Walkabout established March 25, 1929 by its parent body the Australian National Travel Association.[22] For the latter Trompf produced posters targeted at a limited number overseas who could afford travel, and their designs and content reflect this niche market.[23] By 1930, 100,000 posters had been distributed.[24]

World War II

In May 1942, he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force and was commissioned as a pilot in June.[3] Trompf served mostly at Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea, and worked as a camouflage officer.[3] He was demobilized in February 1948, with the rank of flying officer.[3]

Postwar
Trompf, Percival Albert (1933), The Marine Wonders of the Great Barrier Coral Reef. Colour Lithograph

Returning to business after the war, Trompf received little work from A.N.T.A and the Victorian Railways. His clientele reduced during the 1950s to the Queensland Government Tourist Bureau,[25] the Commonwealth Railways, and Victorian Education Department for road safety posters. He produced also some book covers, illustration and design, including Under southern skies, on the Dandenong Ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Gippsland for the Australian Publicity Council.[26][27]

Poster design declined in the 1960s as magazines and travel institutions increasingly used more affordable colour photography rather than specially commissioning graphic illustrations, for the sake of faster turn-around and for more persuasive realism.[28]

Reception

Trompf enjoyed a growing reputation alongside other poster artists James Northfield, Walter Jardine, Eileen Mayo, Gert Sellheim and C. Dudley Wood. In their 1940 report on the first annual show of the Australian Commercial and Industrial Artists’ Association in Sydney, The Bulletin characterised him as "one of the few poster men whose signature is well known."[19] In 1985, surveying Australian representations of beach culture, historian Geoffrey Dutton equates Trompf to Max Dupain, Charles Conder and Sydney Nolan.[29]

The colour lithography that Trompf used produced bold, simplified realism in an Art Deco style,[30][31] with wide appeal, especially during the Great Depression. Posters exhorted Australians to travel by rail, to eat more fruit to the benefit of the country's struggling primary producers and, against competition from cars and buses contributing to unsustainable rail service deficits, they sought to promote diversity of purposes for travel that might provide new sources of revenue.[32] They promoted the simple joys of sun-worship,[25] surfing[33] and bushwalking,[34] which were then becoming popular alongside a general interest in 'body culture' then pervasive among the young,[35] famously celebrated in Trompf's best-known poster simply titled Australia.[36]

In recent evaluations, Gilfedder, in analysing, as a sample, the visual rhetoric of Trompf's poster for the British market featuring Captain Cook's landing at Botany Bay to invite the traveler to 'Discover Australia', concludes that such travel posters were early instances of 'country branding'.[37] Symes perceives that railway posters of this period using state-of-the-art techniques of the new field of commercial art developed Victoria's tourist geography, locating, labelling, visualising and imbuing places and regions with specific recreational and leisure attributes[38] and Pocock attributes such responsibility, on a whole-of-Australia scale, to Trompf's 1933 poster [39] in advancing the Great Barrier Reef as one of the most significant tourist destinations.[24] Dann[40] and Barnes[41] show how tourism marketing professionals including Trompf created a visual language of modernity, promotion and consumerism.[42]

Barnes cites Trompf's Commonwealth Railway poster as applying an American aesthetic in depicting Central Australia; replacing North American pueblos with Australian indigenous ‘Arunta' men. Juxtaposing modern, white, explorers-cum-tourists with 'primitive natives’ each in formulaic groupings, positions and postures, the colonial figures and their vehicles are given centre- and stage-right to symbolise progress, while Aboriginal men are diminished in scale and backgrounded to represent their servility and symbolic position in the past.[43][44]

The nostalgic attractiveness and historical interest of Trompf's posters endure; they are frequently included in public exhibitions,[45] they have become collectible national treasures[46][35] and they fetch up to $A12,000 at auction.[47][48]

Personal life

On 14 May 1932, Trompf married Vera Johns at the Methodist Church, Armadale, Victoria, Melbourne, and they had two daughters.[3] His nephew (b.1940) was religious historian Professor Garry W. Trompf.[49][50]

Trompf died of a renal infection on 17 July 1964 in Heidelberg, Melbourne.[3]

Works

1920s
  • Trompf, Percy; Victorian Railways (1920), The holiday spirit, Mt. Buffalo National Park, Victorian Railways
  • Trompf, Percy; Victorian Railways (issuing body.) (1923), Take a day at the seaside : go down by train!, [Victorian Railways]
  • Trompf, Percy; Victorian Railways; F.W. Niven Pty. Ltd, (printer.) (1924), See the Better Farming Train
  • Trompf, Percy; Victorian Railways (1924), See the better farming train : a wonderful exhibition accompanied by experts to help the farmer and lady demonstrators in household affairs to assist the farmer's wife : increased production, reduced costs, farm efficiency, improved stock, Victorian Railways, Australia
  • Trompf, Percy; Victorian Railways (issuing body.); Robert Harding Pty Ltd (printer.) (1924), Visit Mt. Buffalo National Park this summer, [Victorian Railways]
  • Trompf, Percy; Australian Railways Commissioners (1925), Australia calls you : settler, investor or tourist, Australian Railways Commissioners[51]
  • Trompf, Percy; Orient Line Steam Navigation Company (1929), Australia, Orient Line 20,000 ton ships, Orient Line
  • Trompf, Percy; Australian National Travel Association (1929), The Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay 1770, Australia, Australian National Travel Association
  • Trompf, Percy; Australian National Travel Association (issuing body.) (1929), Australia : particulars at shipping and travel agencies, Melbourne Troedel & Cooper Pty. Ltd

1930s

1940s

1950s

Posthumous

Exhibitions
  • 2017, July 14 - October 15; Brave new world, National Gallery of Victoria
  • 2012/13, December 12 - July 7; Treasures Gallery, National Library of Australia, 12 December 2012 - 7 July 2013
  • 2008, March 5 - June 15; Bridging the Distance, National Library of Australia[52]
  • 2007/8, December 13 - February 17; Pioneers of the Inland: Australia's Muslim Cameleers 1860s - 1930s, National Library of Australia
  • 2003/04, 22 October - March; Tourism in Australia: an exhibition of material from the Monash University Library Rare Books Collection, Sir Louis Matheson Library, Monash University[53][28]
  • 2001, August 10 - October 22; All the rage: the poster in Victoria 1850-2000, Keith Murdoch Gallery, State Library of Victoria
  • 1999/2000, November - March; Follow the Sun, National Library of Australia

Collections

Awards
  • 1929: winner, Orient Company's first prize of £30 for a design in the annual industrial poster competition organised by the Royal Society of Arts[60]
  • 1934: Ideal Label Contest
  • 1946: First prize (£100) in the Blue Mountains Council's nation-wide competition

References
  1. "Take a trip into the past: rare Australian vintage travel posters – in pictures". The Guardian. 14 November 2019. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  2. "Family Notices". The Argus (Melbourne). Victoria, Australia. 1 April 1936. p. 1. Retrieved 30 January 2020 – via Trove.
  3. Spearritt, Katie; Spearritt, Peter. "Trompf, Percival Albert (Percy) (1902–1964)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  4. 'South Street Competitions', Ballarat Star, January 18, 1915, Ballarat, p.4
  5. Victorian Education Department Certificates
  6. 'Echoes of the Past': Ballarat School of Mines Past Student's Association, 1932, 1936, 1938
  7. "Percival Albert TROMPF (1902-1964)". Federation University. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  8. 'Ballarat Art Show Opens: Fine Posters,' Melbourne Herald, August 28, 1930, Melbourne, p.19
  9. Ballarat Star, August 07,1922, Ballarat, p.4
  10. Caban, Geoffrey (1983), A fine line : a history of Australian commercial art, Hale & Iremonger, ISBN 978-0-86806-012-5
  11. Rolls, Mitchell; Johnston, Anna, 1972-, (author.) (2016), Travelling home, Walkabout magazine and mid-twentieth-century Australia, Anthem Press, an imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company, ISBN 978-1-78308-537-8CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  12. Northfield, James; Hetherington, Michelle, 1959-; National Library of Australia; Northfield, James, 1887-1973 (2006), James Northfield and the art of selling Australia, National Library of Australia, ISBN 978-0-642-27619-3CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  13. Trompf, Percy; Victorian Railways (1920), The holiday spirit, Mt. Buffalo National Park, Victorian Railways
  14. Trompf, Percy; Victorian Railways (issuing body.) (1923), Take a day at the seaside : go down by train!, [Victorian Railways]
  15. Trompf, Percy; Victorian Railways; F.W. Niven Pty. Ltd, (printer.) (1924), See the Better Farming Train
  16. Trompf, Percy; Victorian Railways (1924), See the better farming train : a wonderful exhibition accompanied by experts to help the farmer and lady demonstrators in household affairs to assist the farmer's wife : increased production, reduced costs, farm efficiency, improved stock, Victorian Railways, Australia
  17. Trompf, Percy; Victorian Railways (issuing body.); Robert Harding Pty Ltd (printer.) (1924), Visit Mt. Buffalo National Park this summer, [Victorian Railways]
  18. "A CHANCE FOR ARTISTS". The Examiner (Tasmania). Tasmania, Australia. 23 July 1927. p. 12 – via Trove.
  19. "SUNDRY SHOWS (18 December 1940)", The Bulletin, John Haynes and J.F. Archibald, 61 (3175), 18 December 1940, ISSN 0007-4039
  20. Smith's Weekly, August 8, 1931, Sydney, p.15
  21. Trompf, Percy (1930), Banff : Canadian Pacific Railway, J.E. Hackett, print, retrieved 30 January 2020
  22. Bryans, Dennis (2004), "Magazines a specialty: the Specialty Press and the Commercial Travellers' Association", Bulletin (Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand), 28 (3): 4–23, ISSN 0084-7852
  23. LAW, John and Kevin HETHERINGTON, 1999. "Materialities, spatialities and globalities", Dept of Sociology,. University of Lancaster
  24. Pocock, Celmara Anne (2003), Romancing the Reef : history, heritage and the hyper-real, The author
  25. Cantrell, Kate (2018), "A state of slogans: Promotion and the perception of the sunshine state", Kill Your Darlings (Jul-Dec 2018): 188–195, ISSN 1837-638X
  26. Trompf, Percy, 1902-1964, (book designer.); Turnbull, Lyle, 1928-2003, (author.); Australian Publicity Council (1954), Under southern skies: Victoria, Australia, Australian Publicity CouncilCS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  27. 'Under Southern Skies: production story of a magnificent book', Morwell Advertiser, July 05, 1954, p.7
  28. "Tourism in Australia: an exhibition of material from the Monash University Library Rare Books Collection 22 October 2003 - March 2004". repository.monash.edu. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
  29. Dutton, Geoffrey (1985), Sun, sea, surf and sand -- the myth of the beach, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-554411-4
  30. Biron, George (2018), "Lost and found - Percy Everett and Vanne Trompf", Spirit of Progress, 19 (4): 26–27, ISSN 1443-7554
  31. Lord, Jullie (March 2019), "The Percy Trompf story", Spirit of Progress, 20 (1): 18–20, ISSN 1443-7554
  32. Symes, Colin (2016), "Even our 2nd class cars are more comfortable than motor buses!" : an analysis of victorian railway posters between the wars, Routledge, ISSN 1444-3058
  33. Walding, Murray (2016), Surf-o-rama : treasures of Australian surfing (New ed.), Miegunyah Press, an imprint of Melbourne University Publishing, ISBN 978-0-522-86997-2
  34. Trompf, Percy, 1902-1964, (illustrator.); Victorian Railways. Betterment and Publicity Board, (issuing body.) (1931), Wonderful walks in Victoria ([New edition] ed.), The Betterment and Publicity Board, Victorian Railways, retrieved 30 January 2020CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  35. Booth, Douglas (2001), Australian beach cultures : the history of sun, sand, and surf, Frank Cass, ISBN 978-0-7146-5167-5
  36. Kerr, Rosemary (2019), Roads, tourism and cultural history : on the road in Australia, Channel View Publications, ISBN 978-1-84541-668-3
  37. Gilfedder, Deirdre (2010), "The visual rhetoric of Australian travel posters between the wars: Branding a new nation", Cultures of the Commonwealth (15/16): 95–105, ISSN 1245-2971
  38. Symes, Colin (2015), Motion pictures : an analysis of the posters of Victorian railways during the 1920s and 1930s, Routledge, ISSN 1755-182X
  39. Trompf, Percy; Queensland Government Tourist Bureau (1933), The Marine wonders of the Great Barrier Coral Reef : for particulars & bookings apply Queensland Government Tourist Bureau, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Frederick Phillips, Government Printer
  40. Dann, Graham (1996), The language of tourism : a sociolinguistic perspective, CAB International, ISBN 978-0-85198-999-0
  41. Barnes, Jillian E., ‘Resisting the captured image: how Gwoja Tjungurrayi, ʻOne Pound Jimmyʼ, escaped the ʻStone Age.ʼ’ In Hannah, Mark, (editor.); Macfarlane, Ingereth, (editor.); ANU E Press (2007), Transgressions : critical Australian indigenous histories, ANU E Press and Aboriginal History Incorporated, ISBN 978-1-921313-43-1CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  42. Spearritt, Peter (1997), "Symbols for Australia. [The changes to the iconography of political and corporate advertising.]", Artlink, 17 (3): 58–60, ISSN 0727-1239
  43. Waitt, Gordon (1 March 1997), "Selling paradise and adventure: representations of landscape in the tourist advertising of Australia", Australian Geographical Studies, Blackwell Publishers Ltd, v35 (n1): 47(14), ISSN 0004-9190
  44. Waitt, G. (1999). Naturalizing the ‘primitive’: A critique of marketing Australia's indigenous peoples as ‘hunter‐gatherers’. Tourism Geographies, 1(2), 142-163.
  45. Butler, Roger (1993), The streets as art galleries - walls sometimes speak : poster art in Australia, National Gallery of Australia, ISBN 978-0-642-13020-4
  46. "Bondi gems beckon in UK", Australasian Business Intelligence, COMTEX News Network, Inc, 16 October 2013, ISSN 1320-6680
  47. "Percy Trompf Paintings & Artwork for Sale | Percy Trompf Art Value Price Guide". www.invaluable.com. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
  48. www.bibliopolis.com. "Percy Trompf at Joseph Lebovic Gallery". Josef Lebovic Gallery. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
  49. "Emeritus Professor Garry W. Trompf | Religious History Association". Retrieved 30 January 2020.
  50. Cusack, Carole M; Trompf, G. W; Cusack, Carole M., 1962-; Hartney, Christopher; ProQuest (Firm) (2010), Religion and retributive logic : essays in honour of professor Garry W. Trompf, Brill, ISBN 978-1-282-78641-7CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  51. "TO ADVERTISE AUSTRALIA". The Sydney Morning Herald. New South Wales, Australia. 5 February 1925. p. 10 – via Trove.
  52. Dent, Margaret, 1944-; Clark, John; National Library of Australia (2008), Bridging the distance : [exhibition], National Library of Australia, ISBN 978-0-642-27661-2CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  53. Overell, Richard; Overell, Richard (curator) (2003), Tourism in Australia: an exhibition of material from the Monash University Library Rare Books Collection 22 October 2003 - March 2004, Monash University Library, retrieved 30 January 2020
  54. "Works by Percy Trompf :: The Collection :: Art Gallery NSW". www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
  55. "NGA collection search results". artsearch.nga.gov.au. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
  56. "Trove search results for 'exact_creator:"Trompf Percy 1902 1964"' - Pictures, photos, objects". Trove. Retrieved 30 January 2020.
  57. Horky, Wanda (1 October 2006), "Australia--a place for surf and sunshine, romance and holidays ... the poster collection at the National Library of Australia", National Library of Australia Gateways, National Library of Australia (83), ISSN 1039-3498
  58. National Museum of Australia (30 June 2012), "Appendix 3: National Historical Collection: Material acquired and approved by Council, 1 July 2011 - 30 June 2012 (30 June 2012)", Annual Report, Australian Government Publishing Service (291 of 2012): 109, ISSN 0818-7142
  59. Australian National Maritime Museum (30 June 2003), "APPENDIX 2 SELECTED ACQUISITIONS (30 June 2003)", Annual Report, Australian National Maritime Museum (281 of 2003): 85, ISSN 1039-4036
  60. "Ballarat Student Wins Poster Prize". The Register News-pictorial. South Australia. 20 July 1929. p. 4 – via Trove.
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