Artist: John Held
Condition: A- *
Dimensions: 23.8 x 35.9 in. / 60.5 x 91.3 cm.
Circa: 1954
Linen Backed
* See Condition Grading section for further details
There is some toning along the left edge and some areas of light surface smudges; this gorgeous Canadian travel poster should display beautifully once framed.
The tagline dates this precisely because Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949, and the provincial government wasted little time positioning its rugged Atlantic coastline for tourism. The illustration is confident and well-composed with an outport harbor, schooners at anchor, gulls wheeling in the foreground, and the dramatic fjord landscape of the Northern Peninsula behind. The muted sage and deep green palette suits the subject entirely.
"Canada's Newest Playground" is doing considerable work for a place that had been continuously inhabited for centuries, but that was the promotional logic of the moment.