Percy Trompf’s Visit Colourful Queensland, dating from around the 1930s, presents the Australian state as an exuberant abundance of tropical colour. Flowers spill from the upper left while bananas, pineapple and other fruit gather below, framing the central command to “VISIT COLOURFUL QUEENSLAND”. Deep reds and purples are set against vivid greens and ripe yellows, their intensity heightened by a pale, neutral ground. The result is decorative but purposeful: an instantly legible advertisement in which Queensland itself becomes synonymous with sunshine, fertility and sensory pleasure.

Trompf was an Australian commercial artist noted for the bold flat colour and streamlined forms associated with Art Deco graphic design. His tourism work belongs to an era when posters played a central role in constructing the public identity of destinations, condensing an entire region into a few persuasive motifs. Rather than showing a particular beach, city or landmark, this design promotes Queensland through its climate and produce. Its vision is deliberately expansive: the state is advertised not as a single view but as a luxuriant environment, made memorable through colour, rhythm and abundance.

A closer look

The vertical format allows Trompf to build the composition almost like a botanical cascade. In the upper section, red and purple blossoms descend among curling leaves, their irregular contours introducing movement around the more rigid lettering. Faint floral shadows fall across the background, giving the forms a slight sense of projection without compromising the poster’s essential flatness. Fine outlines sharpen individual petals and foliage, while the uncluttered ground ensures that even the smallest colour accents remain clear.

The fruit creates a heavier visual anchor across the lower part of the design. Bright yellow bananas curve around the arrangement, their smooth surfaces picked out with restrained highlights; the spiky crown and patterned skin of a pineapple provide a contrasting structure. Orange and green forms are interleaved with broad leaves, balancing the flower cluster above. These overlapping shapes supply depth through layering rather than conventional perspective, giving the poster a compact, almost emblematic unity.

Typography is woven into this vegetation rather than merely placed over it. “COLOURFUL” is especially emphatic, the word functioning as both description and graphic event amid the surrounding blossoms. Beneath the principal slogan appears the name of the Queensland Government Tourist Bureau, followed lower down by addresses in Adelaide Street, Brisbane, Martin Place, Sydney, and Collins Street, Melbourne. These smaller lines turn the seductive display into practical publicity, directing prospective travellers towards tourist offices in three Australian cities. Trompf’s signature sits discreetly at the lower right.

Context and significance

Early twentieth-century travel posters had to communicate quickly in public settings, where clarity and visual impact mattered more than detailed description. Trompf answers that challenge with a carefully controlled hierarchy: the destination name is immediate, the natural imagery supplies its appeal, and the administrative information is reserved for closer reading. His use of simplified silhouettes and concentrated colour makes the design modern, while the flowers and fruit retain enough observed detail to feel specific and appetising.

The poster also reveals how tourism advertising could shape a geographical idea. Queensland is reduced neither to a map nor to an urban monument; instead, it becomes “colourful” through accumulated signs of warmth and growth. That selective vision is precisely what gives the design its continuing interest. It is at once a period advertisement, an example of Australian Art Deco commercial art and a particularly assured exercise in turning regional identity into graphic form.

Choosing the right size and finish

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The model in the listing images is holding the 36x24in (90x60cm) version of this art print.

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This artwork is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The work is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present an art print without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas art and explore the differences between my different finishes.