Tag: history
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Shakespeare Gentleman Illustrator
The first Shakespeare Penguin titles appeared in 1940. They were designed by the steadfast classicist Jan Tschichold. By the late 1960s the series was looking dated. Penguin was trying to be less literal and more cerebral, and designer Germano Facetti had the answer. In revamping the Bard’s work, Facetti commissioned David Gentleman to create an illustration…
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When Text is Enough
When the time came for Paul Auster’s Penguin books to be redesigned, he asked the art director to consider using a typographical rather than image based approach. Good idea Mr Auster. Designer Greg Mollica came up with this elegant solution.
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Atmospheric Content
When Germano Facetti began working for Penguin in 1961, the company had grown so much that the books were looking a bit all over the place. His job was to transform the new titles and reissues into something contemporary while retaining continuity. Facetti’s directive was that, “The pictorial idea, be it drawing, collage or photograph,…
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50 Shades of White
I’m noticing a trend in book design. Many shades of white. I bought these books recently. The covers jumped right out at me. Design as Art is a reprint of a 1970s Bruno Munari classic about all things design and art. Deyan Sudjic’s The Language of Things is also a reprint. The initial cover was very…
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Middlemarch Winter
“Art is an old language with a great many artificial affected styles, and sometimes the chief pleasure one gets out of knowing them is the mere sense of knowing. I enjoy the art of all sorts here immensely; but I suppose if I could pick my enjoyment to pieces I should find it made up…
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Spooky Spirit
This scary little fellow is a piece of sancai ware pottery from China. Sancai ware is a type of glazing whereby three colours are used to create this delicate effect. Tang sancai wares were sometimes referred to as egg-and-spinach by dealers. The hoofed figurine sits outside the tomb to stop dead people coming out of their graves to made…
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Alfred and Uma
Most of the fabulousness of the National Gallery of Victoria can be attributed to Mr Alfred Felton.
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Ellsworth Kelly’s Facade
Ellsworth Kelly, close to 90 years old, recently completed a striking sculpture for Matthew Marks Gallery in Los Angeles. He placed this huge structure onto the building facade. | Ellsworth Kelly Sculpture, 2012, Matthew Marks Gallery, Image: Joshua White/Matthew Marks Gallery, 2012 | Ellsworth Kelly continually re-works his ideas and this sculpture was inspired by one…
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Cézanne Seeing
As I’m painting away, I often reflect on youthful influences. Paul Cézanne popped up last week when I was looking at Godfrey Miller’s work. And then along came Ellsworth Kelly. Coincidentally, I came across a beautiful catalogue for a 2009 exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, ‘Cezanne and Beyond,’ linking contemporary paintings with Cézanne’s works. One…
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Iona House Green
Iona House was surrounded by our busy dairy and potato farm. Along with raising seven children, the garden was to become a very big part of my mother Hayden’s life. And constant maintenance of the house. When the time came to re-paint the house, green and yellow tones were chosen. | Iona House , c1968…
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Iona House Red and Blue
Iona House in all its glorious Kodak Instamatic colour. There’s the old bank/playhouse on the left. Looks like we had visitors that day. | Iona House, 2066 Main Drain Road, c1960s | The architect of the Iona House, John Davidson said “Your parents were looking for a contemporary statement, not an imitation heritage, or pseudo…
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Iona House Features
In the black and white days of the Iona House at 2066 Main Drain Road, Iona, family and possessions were falling gently into place. A whole new world of light filled, curtain free spaces and a plan for a really big garden. | Iona House c1960 | The stairway up to the more formal lounge room…
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Iona House Family
| Iona House, c1960 | I contacted architect John Davidson and he kindly corresponded with me about the “Carlowrie” house at Iona. I have always loved the ramp device on the house and John mentioned it was my mother Hayden’s idea to make it easier to get the prams into the house. At this stage,…
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Iona House Beginnings
As the grand-daughter of a Koo-We-Rup East Iona pioneer, my mother Hayden Ritson (Kavanagh) inherited all sorts of land around Iona. In the late 1950s, my parents decided to build a brand new house in the modern style. It would be right next door to the Iona Post Office. They called it “Carlowrie” after the…
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Kavanagh and Featherstone
My great-grandparents, Owen Kavanagh and Catherine Featherstone, were early pioneers of Iona. | Owen Kavanagh with grand-daughter Eileen Kavanagh, 1920s | After all the hard work of digging the Main Drain and clearing the land, a real community began to grow. “The Pioneers of Koo-Wee-Rup East Iona Group (1892 to 1919)” was formed to proudly…
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Swampland
I’ve always had an uneasy relationship with Australian land. I’m sure it’s got to do with my ancestors and their struggle with the land and the obvious question of what happened to the indigenous people of the area. | Unknown, Aboriginal Australian shelter in bushland (Gippsland?), c1883, State Library of Victoria | In 1892 my…
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Fitzpatrick’s Drouin
Photographer Jim Fitzpatrick was an official war photographer for the Australian Information Service. The activities of this government department were many and varied, and in 1981 two packets of photographs of the rural Victorian town Drouin were sent back to Australia by the New York office of the A.I.S. Some of these photos had appeared…
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Drouin Drinkers
I spent my early years in Gippsland. The Swamp District. I came across this image of my Great Aunt Eileen, pulling beers, or turning on the tap, at the Drouin Hotel. Eileen Glen. | Jim Fitzpatrick, Mrs Gleeson pours a beer for customers at the Drouin Hotel, Drouin, 1944 | In 1944, the Curtin government…
