JOURNAL REVIEW BY DR ROSS JOHNSTON, Queensland History Journal, vol. 24, no. 11, November 2021, (Journal of The Royal Historical Society of Queensland); BOOK REVIEW BY DR LINDA YOUNG, Fringe, Frog & Tassel: The Arts of the Trimmings-Maker in Interior Decoration. By Annabel Westman; BOOK REVIEW BY DR DAVID BEDF...
Petra ten-Doesschate Chu and Max Donnelly with Andrew Montana and Suzanne Veldink, Daniel Cottier: Designer, Decorator, Dealer.
Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, Yale University Press, New Haven CT 2021. Hard cover,
256 pp, 200 illustrations, Booktopia price $59 plus postage.
Philip...
BOOK REVIEW BY PETER LANE Noris Ioannou Vernacular Visions: A Folklife History of Australia: Art, Diversity, Storytelling Wakefield Press, Mile End SA, 2021. Hard cover, 275 pp, 26 x 27 cm, RRP $79.95
Vanessa Finney, Transformations: Harriet and Helena Scott, colonial Sydney’s finest natural history painters. New South Publishing, 2018, ISBN 9781742235806, 220 pages
With Heart & Hand: art pottery in Queensland 1900–1950. Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane, 2018. Standard edition $125, limited edition (with designer print)
Christine Erratt, Ceremonial maces of Australian universities. Parker Press, Sydney 2018. 56 pages, 138 colour images, perfect bound 230 x 190 mm. ISBN 978 0 646 989235
udith White, Culture Heist. Art versus Money, Brandl & Schlesinger, Sydney 2017. Paperback 246 pp
Glenda King, Maude Poynter: painter and potter. Tasmanian Chapter of the Australiana Society Inc., Hobart, 2018. Soft cover, 108 pages, plentiful colour and black and white illustrations. ISBN 978-0-646-98281- 6,
If you think that a history of the numismatic collection held by the Art Gallery of South Australia would be a dry read of limited appeal, you are certainly in for a pleasant surprise with Peter Lane’s new book. It is a good read, full of life and interest.
The first study into our furniture history appears to be by John Earnshaw, a retired engineer. The name ‘W. Beatton’ stamped on an old cedar chiffonier aroused his curiosity. Earnshaw investigated further and produced a slim book, Early Sydney Cabinetmakers, in 1971 which resulted in devotees, students, his...
... Tamie Fraser was one of the first to realise the same could be done here to reflect our own culture and history. In 1978, she encouraged the establishment of The Australiana Fund (not to be confused with the Australiana Society, established in the same year), with the aim of lending appropriate examples of ...
The Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston claims that Peddle chairs are “Tasmania’s best known antique”, so that probably justifies a book about them. And who better to compile it than Denis Lake, a Launceston furniture restorer, who can combine research with his detailed practical knowledge...
During the second decade of the new millennium, many pioneers of the crafts movement in Australia, which began to flourish in the 1970s, will celebrate four decades of working in studio practices with their chosen materials.
Samuel Thomas Gill died melodramatically, aged 62, on the steps on the Melbourne Post Office at half past four on Wednesday 27 October 1880. A policeman recorded that he “was in a most filthy state and covered with vermin” while a search of the pockets found pills which identified him. An autopsy revealed t...
The extended title for this splendid visual feast is a catalogue to accompany the exhibition Postcards from the Edge of the City at the Santos Museum of Economic Botany, 9 December 2014 to 26 April 2015. As a catalogue this book contains the front and back sides of 300 postcards published between 1900 and 1917.
Published as the first of two hardcover volumes (the second will cover the period from 1950 to now), this is Dr Dorothy Erickson’s most ambitious publishing venture. Exploring the work of designers and makers in Western Australia since the founding of the Swan River Colony in 1829 until 1969, it is her most s...
Over the last 20 years or so interest in convict artist Joseph Lycett (1775–1828) has steadily quickened and heightened in Australian popular culture through the influence of various published works and exhibitions. He is now held in high regard by art and cultural historians.
Hordern House continues their excellent service in the publication of early colonial history by releasing Robert Purdie’s Narrative of the Wreck of HMS Porpoise hot on the heels of Elizabeth Ellis’s book on The Sydney Punchbowl in the Mitchell Library. Here the subject is a first-hand description of the fou...
David Kelly sets out in this book to chart the history of 100 or so master cabinet-makers working in New South Wales up to 1850. His introduction discusses that bland sentence in some detail, meticulously defining those terms and the parameters of his research. Then Kelly outlines the structure of the book, sou...
Author Stephen Marshall is to be congratulated on writing this carefully compiled compendium of (William) Blamire Young’s watercolours, for while in his own words he is a passionate art lover, he modestly refutes being an expert on art history. Nevertheless, over 650 pages he has assembled an impressive catal...
A lengthy title, but for a magnificently appointed book. It not only provides a translation of Péron’s memoir for the first time, but insightfully explores every relevant nook and cranny of colonial history of the period. The book is considerably enhanced by art works and contemporary maps, particularly thos...
There are many fine artists who barely rate a mention in the history of Australian art, so it was gratifying to read a long overdue biography of Charles Lloyd Jones (1878–1958). Jones is best known today as the Managing Director of David Jones department store during its boom times in the first half of the la...
Produced from its premises in Launceston, Tasmania, Campbell’s pottery products were shipped to shops and agents in Tasmania, mainland Australia, New Zealand and as far as India and the USA. Examples can be found regularly at antique shops and auction rooms throughout Australia. The vast majority of pieces av...
Hordern House commissioned Elizabeth Ellis OAM, the Emeritus Mitchell Librarian, to research the background to the Chinese export porcelain punchbowl in the Mitchell Library showing scenes of the colony about 1814.
In masterminding and producing this fine book, Tony Kanellos, Cultural Collections Manager and Curator of the Santos Museum of Economic Botany located in the Adelaide Botanic Garden, has provided both reader and book collector with a gem. It clearly demonstrates his care of and expertise in the safekeeping of t...
As the daughter of a botanist, botanical artist and writer for whom species and genera have been named, and currently researching the women artists of Western Australia, I was really interested to review what looked to be a lovely book. The attractive layout designed by Kathryn Wright has numerous illustrations...
The Neville Cayleys – father and son – are a curious case. Both were prolific, and are well represented in the market. The most recent iteration of the Australian Art Sales Digest (www. aasd.com.au) lists 605 works by Neville Henry Cayley and 572 works by Neville William Cayley sold at auction since the 197...