POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

'Ban the Neutron Bomb' poster

Object No. 2008/22/1-2

Protest posters produced by Australian artists and designers during the 1970s and 1980s are some of the greatest examples of poster art produced anywhere in the world. (Peter Vincent, Up against the Wall, Sydney Morning Herald, Money p15, 15 October 2003). This period was a time of major social and political change in Australia following the Vietnam War, the lead up to and turbulent years following the dismissal of the Whitlam Labour Government in 1975, and the rise of the anti-nuclear, international peace, anti-apartheid, environmental and women's movements. These posters by Ralph Sawyer (1925-2007) are part of a larger group of posters created while the designer was working as a waterside worker (wharfie) and trade union representative for the Waterside Workers Federation in Sydney. They were both designed and printed by Sawyer, in what his friend, textile designer George Hardwick, called the "clandestine above-ground, under-ground" print workshop located on the upper (fourth) floor of the Waterside Workers Federation building at 60 Sussex Street, Sydney. Although the Waterside Workers workshop was intended for the production of May Day and Labour Day banners and broadsheets, Sawyer deliberately expanded the studio into a four-colour printing facility. Around this time, many similar print workshops were springing up in inner-city suburbs around Australia, but few were as covert as that operating out of the Waterside Worker's Federation building. For these independent and alternative media groups, screenprinting was seen as an attractive medium because it was quick, cheap and easy to produce and did not require expensive technology or large premises. The Earthworks Poster Collective was established at the University of Sydney in the early 1970s, Co-Media in Adelaide in 1974, Redletter Community Workshop in Melbourne in 1979, Redback Graphix in Wollongong in 1980, Megalo Screenprint Incorporated in Canberra in 1980, Garage Graphix in Mt Druit in 1981, and Another Planet Posters Collective in Melbourne in 1984. Growing awareness of workplace safety during the 1980s drew attention to the health hazards associated with using toxic solvent-based screen-printing inks in poorly ventilated environments. This, together with the increasing availability of computers and computer-aided graphic design software from the mid-1980s, eventually led to the demise of what had become a lively independent poster art tradition in Australia, a demise that wasn't arrested with the introduction of water-based inks in the late 1980s. Stylistically and politically, Sawyer's posters (which document the designer's political activism and his spontaneous artistic responses to the socio-political climate of the day) owe a debt to the logos, graphics and slogans of the African National Congress, South Africa's national liberation movement. Often hastily produced in response to current issues, they present a range of spontaneous, often quite radical, responses to contemporary issues and were deliberately designed, with their bold graphic images and strong slogans, to rally mass public sentiment and to counter social inertia to these issues. The posters highlight Sawyer's commitment to, personal involvement in, and support for the environment, labour, peace and women's movements. They are poignant reminders of alternative public reactions to socio-political events occuring in Australia and globally during the 1970s and 80s. Anne-Marie Van de Ven, Curator 2007 References: Deborah Clark, ' Pictorial Picture Post', Art and Australia, Vol 31, No 4. p 462-464 Roger Butler, Poster Art in Australia: the streets as art galleries - walls sometimes speak, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 1993 Peter Vincent, 'Up against the wall', Sydney Morning Herald, Money, p12, 15 October, 2003. Curatorial notes from meetings with the designer, members of his family, and his friend, George Hardwick, 2003-2006.