Title

Sellheim, Gert.

Author

Butler, Roger

Source

[Not applicable]

Details

1997

Publication date

1997

Type

Biography

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Full text

Gert Sellheim

Gert Sellheim was born of German parents in Estonia in 1901. After the First World War, in which he was injured, Sellheim studied architecture at universities in Berlin, Munich and Gratz. He worked in London before travelling to Fremantle, Western Australia in 1926. Initially Sellheim’s qualifications were not recognised by local authorities; the only employment he could find was humping bagged wheat. Eventually he worked as a site architect on the University of Western Australia.

In 1930 Sellheim moved to Melbourne where he set up his own architectural practice and began designing and exhibiting posters, many for the Australian tourist industry. He also had a long association with the Australian publisher, Oswald Ziegler, for whom he designed many books. In 1939 he was awarded the Sulman Prize for his commissioned mural decorating the Melbourne Government Tourist Bureau. He worked on the designs for the Australian Pavilion at the New York World Fair in 1939 and later collaborated with the Swiss born architect Frederick Romberg.

During the Second World War he was considered to be an ‘enemy alien’ and sent to an internment camp in Victoria in 1943. Through the intervention of his family he was released to do military work. Sellheim produced many commercial designs, most memorably the QANTAS flying kangaroo logo. He was also one of the first émigré artists — although by no means the only one — to embrace Aboriginal motifs. He considered these the most vital form of artwork being produced in Australia.

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