Air Support. Qantas Empire Airways. Continuous Service
1942-1945. Colour lithograph, signed in image lower left, printer’s line in lower margin, 102 x 75cm. Slight creases and minor discolouration visible. Linen-backed.
A wartime tropical scene shows an aircraft overhead and parachutes descending with supplies over mountainous terrain while figures below look upward and signal. The headline continues “Qantas Empire Airways (Incorporated in Queensland). Continuous Service.” Issued by Qantas Empire Airways during 1942–1945, the poster promotes wartime “air support” and continuity of service rather than leisure tourism. During this period Qantas aircraft and crews were used for evacuations and to ferry troops and supplies after the Japanese advance severed normal routes through South-East Asia; from 1943 the airline also maintained the hazardous “Double Sunrise” Indian Ocean link between Australia and Ceylon. Walter Jardine’s signed design turns that logistical role into an immediate human image, placing observers and ground activity directly beneath the aircraft. Another example is held by the National Library of Australia, catalogued to 1942–1945. Held in the NLA.
Item #CL210-10
Price (AUD): $5,500.00 other currencies