Everything But A Holden

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30959, 15 January 1966, Page 5

Everything But A Holden

designs of Australia’s decimal currency banknotes have had a mixed reception from members of the public, art critics, designers and financial authorities. Comments ranged from “brilliant” and “startling” to “corny” and “jam-tin labels.” They are described by one writer as “almost gaudy,” but defended by their designer, Gordon Andrews, as his bid to get away from the “drab and dreary” shades of other notes. Mr Andrews described the general effect as “op art,” and the Reserve Bank of Australia went as far as inviting newspaper art critics to review them. The notes are: One Dollar. Brownishorange and yellow with a new portrait of the Queen and the Australian Commonwealth coat-of-arms on the front, and a line interpretation of aboriginal bark and rock paintings and carvings on the back. Two Dollar. —Soft Green and yellow with John MacArthur, early promoter of the wool industry and a Merino on the front, and a wheat-breeding pioneer, William James Farrer, and varieties of ears of wheat on the reverse.

Ten Dollar.—Blue and orange with a portrait of the convict forger, Francis Howard Greenaway, who was

Australia’s first qualified architect, on a background of an assemblage of his works on the front. The poet Henry Lawson appears on the reverse against a background of photographs and manuscripts of his time. 20 Dollar. —Red and yellow with aviation pioneer, Sir Charles Kings-Smith, and tracings symbolic of wings on the front, and the aircraft designer Lawrence Hargrave, with drawings of flying machines and kites, on the back. The design officer of the Industrial Design Council of Australia, Mr E. E. Underwood, said he had not seen any portrait less like the Queen on the one dollar note. Someone else commented that she looked as though she had a nasty smell under her nose. Elwyn Lynn, art critic of the “Australian” thought the Queen looked as though she

did not approve of decimal currency. He thought the designer had fallen for “the old cliches” and the over-all result was corny. High praise for the notes came from Mr Robin Boyd, an architect and author of “The Australian Ugliness.” He found the notes “imaginative to the point of brilliance” and thought they were probably the best set of banknotes in the world. The aboriginal design on the reverse of the one-dollar note was more suited for use as a table mat, said Mr Underwood. Mr W. D. N. Johnson, director of the Victorian Retail Traders’ Association, found it “like something from a child’s picture book.” The “Sydney Morning Herald” found the designs “distinctly national without being aggressively Australian.” But other critics

attacked them as having “too much Australiana.”

A Melbourne sales girl, Judith Martin, thought they looked like labels off jam tins, and an 18-year-old art student, Prue Duncan, said simply: “they’re revolting.” Mr John Finch, of St. Kilda, found them “too revolutionary—they look like cartoons.” “Probably there will be some people who will say I should have put a Holden car on the notes,” Mr Andrews said, “but I used legitimate subjects and I have not used them in a corny way.” The conventional dollar sign does not appear on any of the notes. “It is a vulgar piece of graphic,” said Mr Andrews

Despite the controversy, the • new notes, which will come into use when Australia changes to decimal currency on February 14, seem to have got off to a good start.