Anton BRUEHL
Australia 1900 – United States of America 1982
United States from 1919

To the ladies Carter’s Ink Company advertisement for ‘ensemble’ range of colour pens and inks for women 1933
image 29.2 (h) x 22.2 (w) cm

As the Great Depression took hold in the early thirties, companies explored ways of expanding their product lines. In a bid to attract more buyers and increase turnover, they introduced a new range each season and made each piece in a range of colours. Promoting the new year’s style through high-quality advertising in the widely-read picture magazines became crucial for success. Bruehl won an Art Directors Club gold medal in 1933 for this advertisement for Carter’s Ink Company. If the companies needed the space in the pages of magazines to promote their wares, the magazines in turn needed the advertising revenue to survive. Improvement in the quality of colour reproduction was needed to show off the new products at their best and the magazine hierarchy and advertising firms were happy to pay highly for perfectionists like Bruehl.