?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 4,000
RHYS WILLIAMS (1894-1976)
QANTAS EMPIRE AIRWAYS. Circa 1938.
39 1/2x26 inches, 100 1/2x66 cm. Condition A-: restoration in margins; minor creases and repaired tears at edges.
Primarily known as a landscape painter, Williams was also an illustrator, engraver and commercial artist. He designed a small handful of posters, most notably for Qantas and the P & O shipping line. Qantas Empire Airways came into being in 1934, the result of a merger between Britain's Imperial Airways and Qantas. It operated until 1947 when the company was purchased by the government, and it became Australia's flagship airline. The incredible aircraft pictured on this poster does not seem to have ever existed and was most likely the artist's rendition of a futuristic vessel, in keeping with the slogan of the poster, "Out of a Great Past a Greater Future."
