Figures in a classical landscape

From the mid 1920s, a modern revival in batik painting was popularised in part by artist–designer Frank Weitzel who produced sophisticated art-deco styled batiks. The taste for modern batiks at this time was related to the promotion of Java as a leisure destination for Australians in lifestyle magazines such as 'The Home'.

Sydney’s postwar economic boom resulted in a decade in which commerce and culture became closely entwined. Many artists, including Weitzel, were prompted to expand their work into design and decorative arts. The idea that artists could double as decorators was popularised by the philosophies of the German Bauhaus art school and the British modernist movement that sought to instil the values of abstract art in everyday life.