This poster was produced in 1935, only a year or so after Rotorua’s Blue Baths were opened. It was designed by one of New Zealand most successful graphic designers, Leonard Mitchell, who has, unusually, given this image a bold black border. The focus of the Blue Baths (so named because of the colour of the mineral water) was on recreation, in contrast to the curative properties claimed of other bath houses in Rotorua. The Blue Baths also offered mixed sex bathing for the first time in New Zealand, reflecting the more relaxed attitudes of the post-First World War period. The emphasis in this poster, however, is on the two female figures in the foreground, whose attention is on the pool
whataboutbobbed