Art of Ornament

Australian design, decoration and the stamp 1850-2007

16 June - 15 September 2007
Curated by Elizabeth Gertsakis

From the time of the English invention of Penny Postage in 1840 the stamp was required to be many things – official, informative, ornamental, appealing and yet function as an acceptable and positive national symbol. The traditional role of Australian stamp design is to create an official postage currency that is also an image of meaning, beauty, ornament and decoration.

The exhibition includes unadopted stamp art showing pictorial devices such as heraldic borders used for the depiction of the British monarch to the super-streamlined art deco motifs of the 1930s. Visitors to the exhibition will see the decorative shift away from the use of Australian flowers and animals designs as framing or border decorations to their use as significant and beautiful themes of Australian stamps. The move away from the early use of Australian subject matter as simply a decorative emblem also applies to the depiction of Aboriginal subjects and motifs. Aboriginal content and ideas progress from being represented as framing or ornamental emblems to significant subjects on stamps.

The technical introduction of color printing required much simpler design processes and artistic techniques. Stamp design was influenced by increasing use of hard-edge color printing processes and the impact of geometric design advertising-based symbols and influences derived from silk-screen printing and poster production. From the 1970s and 1980s onward greater recognition of Aboriginal culture meant an increased use of and commissioning of Indigenous art and its symbolic pattern making.

Toward the close of the twentieth century new printing technology encouraged the decorative use of special techniques to emulate the appearance of gold, opals, pearls and diamonds on paper. In 2007 stamps were created using special effects such as plastic lenticular technology.