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Halfsheet vintage travel poster created around 1950 for the French airline UAT (Union Aéromaritime de Transport). Designed by the artist Toni Mella (sometimes spelled Toni Imella or Imola), it is part of a series promoting the airline's routes to Africa and Asia. Poster Details Artist: Toni Mella (1907–1984), a British-born painter and illustrator who worked in Paris. Subject: Two gazelles (often described as antelopes) in a stylized savanna setting. Aircraft: The plane depicted in the sky is a Lockheed Constellation, a long-range airliner that UAT used for its intercontinental routes. Printer: This specific lithography was produced by Imp. Darboy-Paris.Decoding the Text The acronyms at the bottom refer to the regions served by UAT during the French colonial era: AOF: Afrique Occidentale Française (French West Africa). AEF: Afrique Équatoriale Française (French Equatorial Africa). Extreme-Orient: Refers to the Far East destinations, such as Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). Airline History Union Aéromaritime de Transport (UAT) was founded in 1949 and was one of France's major private airlines. It specialized in connecting metropolitan France with its overseas territories in Africa and Asia. In October 1963, UAT merged with another airline, TAI (Transports Aériens Intercontinentaux), to form UTA (Union de Transports Aériens), which eventually became part of Air France in the early 1990s.
The aircraft depicted in the upper-left corner of this vintage UAT Aeromaritime poster is a De Havilland Comet 1.Identification DetailsModel: The de Havilland DH.106 Comet 1 was the world's first commercial jetliner.Significance: UAT (Union Aéromaritime de Transport) was a pioneering French private airline and one of the first in the world to operate jet-powered aircraft, beginning service with the Comet 1 in 1953.Visual Evidence: In the poster, the aircraft is shown with the distinctive buried engines (engines integrated into the wing roots) and sleek, aerodynamic profile that characterized early Comet jets.The Series: This poster is part of a wildlife-themed "African series" by artist Toni Mella. Other posters in the collection, featuring animals like lions and baboons, also include the Comet 1 as a symbol of the airline's modernity and speed.While UAT also operated propeller-driven planes like the Douglas DC-6 during this era, the jet engines and wing design shown here specifically point to the Comet. |
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