This is a man's job! Join the RAAF

Depicts an airman with a target behind him, encouraging men to join the RAAF during the Second World War. The Australian RAAF recruitment poster depicts a pilot ready for take off with aeroplanes overhead. Walter Lacy Jardine (1884-1970) was a commercial artist, who at the age of 12 was apprenticed to J. H. Leonard, newspaper artist, and also studied design, colour and drawing at J. S. Watkins's commercial-art classes in Sydney. He joined the 'Australian Star' as an illustrator and was soon asked to handle advertisements as well. For the next twenty years he worked on and off for the Star (Sun from 1910), achieving widespread recognition for his full-page, black-and-white illustrations. From 1905 to 1917 he was in partnership with J. B. Jones in an advertising company. About 1908 Jardine visited England, Europe and the United States of America to study methods of advertising and illustration; he paid for the trip by working freelance in the U.S.A. Attracted by the high fees that American commercial artists could command, Jardine settled in New York in 1923. Almost instantly successful, he illustrated for such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Motor and the American Legion Magazine, and drew up advertisements for well-known companies, among them Durant Motors Inc., General Motors Corporation and the Packard Motor Car Co. Returning to Sydney in May 1928, Jardine opened a studio and worked as a freelance artist ; magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, posters and handbills featured his work. During the 1950s and 1960s he taught by correspondence for the Art Training Institute, Melbourne. In partnership (1945-59) with W. F. Paterson, he formed the company, Walter Jardine Advertising Service (later Jardine, Paterson & Co.). Jardine's reputation as a leading commercial artist in Australia was based on his dexterity and versatility. During the Second World War he was commissioned by the Department of Defence to design posters.