Item HT 27951 Booklet - `Good Sets Fit', Mullard Radiant Screen Television Tubes, 1956

Summary

Rectangular booklet consisting of six double sided glossy printed pages secured in a glossy cover with two metal staples.

This booklet was printed in 1956, when television was introduced into Australia, by Australian electronics manufacturer Mullard-Australia Pty Ltd. It was designed to promote television ownership to consumers, and contains basic information about how television operates, and how owning a television set will enhance people's lives.

The illustrations on the cover and inside the booklet were designed by Australian artist Charles Meere, who is best known for the famed 1940 painting of Bondi Beach entitled `Australian Beach Pattern.'

Physical Description

Rectangular booklet consisting of 6 double sided glossy printed pages secured in a glossy cover with two metal staples.

Significance

This booklet is significant due to its links to the earliest days of television in Australia. It was published by a local manufacturer of television picture tubes to promote television ownership to the Australian public. According to the introduction `this little book is not intended to dazzle you with science or to be regarded as a standard technical work, but just to explain one or two of the features of this new medium.'

The booklet contains basic information about how television operates, and how owning a television set will enhance people's lives. It includes sections entitled `Television - It's Wonderful', `Is Television Costly ?' and `Television Brightens Your Life'.

It is also significant as an example of the work of commercial artist Charles Meere, who was born in London in 1890 and migrated to Australia in 1930. He worked as a freelance artist before joining the Sydney Morning Herald in the early 1940s. In 1938, when the Art Gallery of New South Wales established the Sulman Prize for murals and figure compositions, one of the first awards went to Meere's painting of the classical goddess, Atlanta. He also painted, and in 1940 he produced the iconic Bondi Beach image `Australian Beach Pattern'.