POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Rousel Studios signwriting and graphic design archive

Object No. 2002/105/1

The archive is a significant record of the work of an important Sydney signwriting and graphic design studio. Signwriting and associated graphic trades including gilding, silvering and glass etching developed strong craft consciousness and traditions during the 1800s. With the expansion of advertising markets and media during the twentieth century, the signwriting industry absorbed new influences from fine art and the decorative arts. Notable in the case of Rousel Studios was the role of Henry Rousel's elder son Jules Henry Roy. A partner in the business, Roy Rousel (1897-1989) created an artistic career, from 1935 studying and exhibiting in London and Paris. His work is held by the Art Gallery of NSW and other public collections. During the 1920s, having completed both his art studies at the Royal Art Society of NSW and his signwriting apprenticeship to his father, Roy Rousel set out to improve the artistic standard and the distinctiveness of the Studio's work. In a short memoir entitled 'Art and trade wedded', Roy Rousel identified the first pub paintings and the David Jones hoardings as highlights of this campaign: 'David Jones and the Balfour Hotel put us on the map, and everywhere I went customers and people talked about them for weeks'. Like much of Rousel's work for department stores, the David Jones hoardings display an awareness and command of contemporary graphic styles. Also significant was the employment of artists with fine art training. Notable among these were Lyall Trindall, Stanley Denford and Tom Porter, who created most of Rousel's pub paintings. During the 1920s and 1930s Rousel's clients formed a 'who's who' of Sydney's retailing and manufacturing world. These examples of their advertising and display form an unusual record of the commercial design of the period. Charles Pickett, Curator