‘Robert was cultural. He’s European and if you grow up a place like I did, you don’t think about it — you’re just ‘of it’. So what you are doing is a natural response. I think Robert was consciously trying to be artistic and, in a commercial sense, no one in Australia gave a rats about that.’ – Brian Sadgrove
Born in Romania in 1938, Rosetzky studied at the School for Applied Arts in Wuppertal, West Germany before moving to Melbourne in 1960. In his St. Kilda Road studio, he established his own freelance business specialising in illustration and occasional calligraphic work for Melbourne University. By the mid 1960’s he was freelancing for Ralph Blunden’s advertising agency and his work was recognised by the ACIAA (Australian Commercial and Industrial Artists Association). This caught the eye of Brian Sadgrove, who commissioned Rosetzky to produce work for the Department of Trade & Industry and pioneering Australian paperback publisher Sun Books.
Rosetzky’s quiet demeanour and artistic focus meant that socialising and self-promotion were not central to his practice. In the mid 1960’s he worked as an independent designer for Unimark International and created iconic illustrations (with Arthur Leydin) for the Australian Dairy Board. In 1969, he partnered with charismatic businessman Darrell Waddell to form Rosetzky Waddell Design — a studio promoted a ‘total design service’. The studio focused on multi-layered applications for business and government including brochures, pamphlets, posters, graphics, stationary and corporate image. To offset his commercial work, Rosetkzy created the cultural identity and program design for the Melbourne Film Festival in 1970.
At the beginning of the 1980s, Rosetzky established his own studio (Robert Rosetzky Design) which attracted a diverse range of clients from various sectors: banking, manufacturing, mining, travel, finance, fashion and government. He worked on countless annual reports and printed matter for the National Bank of Australia and his money box designs again highlighted …. A promotional publication noted that he ‘personally handles all design work and supervises production. Under his direction his assistants carry out comprehensive roughs, finished artwork, working drawings and call quotes for typesetting, print and allied services’.
Outside of the studio, Rosetzky was an avid gardener. His self-published book Bug Art (1995) was ‘dedicated to the little bugs who, whilst satisfying their voracious appetites, enhanced the simple beauty of leaves with their unwitting form of artistic expression’.