( First in a series revealing some of the many gems in the Special Collections and rare books areas of the Eddie Koiki Mabo Library at James Cook University, Townsville . )
The bookplate section in the superb Edna Shaw * Collection in Special Collections contains fine examples by some of the early leading exponents of the art . These are in four labelled albums in a blue slipcase : Adrian Feint (1894-1971) , a painter, involved with Art in Australia for 11 years, who in l930 held an exhibition of bookplates at the Library of Congress, Washington ; George D. Perrottet , whose bookplate designs were the subject of a special review in the 1934 US Bookplate Collectors and Designers Year Book ; Hilda Alexandra Wiseman , born in Tasmania in 1894 , went with her family to Auckland where she was regarded as the top bookplate maker in that country ; Miscellaneous , the title for the fourth , containing examples of interesting work by well known artists and bookplate makers .
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A surprise find in the collection is a 1900 Adrian Feint ex libris bookplate for Dr Aeneas J. McDonnell, of Toowoomba , Queensland , who In 1897 treated 17- year- old Elisabeth Kenny for a broken wrist after she fell from a horse. While in his care, she studied his anatomy books and model skeleton , eventually taking up bush nursing . She became the "legendary" Sister Kenny , particularly famous overseas for her method of treating polio sufferers
Dr McDonnell is said to have been her mentor and advisor in the 1920s and they sent patients suffering from polio and other ailments to mineral spas to relieve pain. The belief was that the warm water could ease rheumatism, muscular pains, arthritis and other conditions. In 1928 Dr McDonnell represented the Queensland Council of Surgeons and was a founding member of the Council of Australasian Surgeons.
In 1932, Sister Kenny established a treatment clinic in Townsville ; despite continuing opposition from the medical profession clinics using her methods were later opened in Brisbane and elsewhere. In l940, she visited the United States where her methods were favourably received and Kenny Clinics opened in that country. Congress honoured her in 1950 and in l952 she was voted the most admired woman in the USA. A duplicate of Dr McDonnell’s bookplate , a wood engraving , is held in the Special Collections Department of the University of Delaware, USA.
PLANE CRASH , OLYMPIC SWIMMER
There is an Adrian Feint bookplate for Alice Mary Smart who appears to have been the mother of RAAF Squadron Leader , Arthur John Smart, DFC, 27, killed when RAAF Beaufort, A9-566, piloted by him , disappeared on a ferry flight from Camden, NSW, to Townsville , via Amberley, on March 11 , 1945. The squadron was on its way to Madang in New Guinea and the plane crashed somewhere between Bowen and Garbutt airfield in Townsville.
A Court of Inquiry was told that an aircraft believed to be a Beaufort was seen circling over Mackay , then over Bowen . There had been an erroneous report that the plane had landed at Rockhampton ; Garbutt airfield was closed at the time due to bad weather. The crew of the ill- fated plane are shown on Memorial Panel No. 101 at the Australian War Memorial.
A 1926 Feint bookplate was made for John Gartner , a collector well known in numismatic , philatelic and decorative arts . The Gartner house in Mt Macedon , Victoria, along with all its fabulous collections, was destroyed in the Ash Wednesday bushfires .
Another gem in the Shaw Collection is the above gondolier bookplate scene for the first Australian to represent the nation as a swimmer at an Olympic Games – Frederick Claude Vivian Lane (1879-1969) . When Lane was four he was saved from drowning by his brother in Sydney Harbour and took up swimming . He became a champion and won many races in Australia and across the Tasman . During his swimming career he won 350 trophies , including more than 100 medals.
In 1900 he became Australia’s first swimming representative at the Paris Olympics, where he won the 200 metres freestyle title in 2 minutes 25.2 seconds , winning by 5.8 seconds , and the 200 metres obstacle race . Working for a legal firm in Blackpool , England, in July 1902 he became the first swimmer to clock one minute for 100 yards. A month later he won the 220 yards in 2 minutes 28.6 seconds , ratified in 1974 by the Federation Internationale de Natation Amateur as the first world record for 200 metres. Soon after, he reportedly "astounded the swimming world " by establishing the first mark when he broke the minute for 100 yards - 59.6 seconds .
Norman Lindsay is represented in the Shaw Collection by a bookplate , below, which appears to depict printers' imps producing a book on a Caxton-like press for a person with the name of Josephi HJALMAR, a copy of which is in the National Library of Australia collection.
WISEMAN'S UNUSUAL STUDIO
The highly regarded bookplate artist, maker and collector , Hilda Wiseman , lived in a house designed by her architect father who had designed many Auckland buildings, including the ferry building at the bottom of Queen Street. A 1937 article in the Sydney Morning Herald described her “quaint” studio–once a working man’s hut on an old mission station , which she bought and had transported to her home . Fourteen diamond glass panels from a school built in 1851 were installed to improve the lighting . Two old chairs of the same vintage were added as well as an 18th century French jewel case . Entering the studio , with its hand press, was like stepping into another world . There were landscapes and watercolours , drawings in every medium, bookplates finished and in the making.
An ardent collector of bookplates from all over the world , she arranged the first Kiwi Ex Libris Exhibition in 1929. Another exhibition in Auckland in 1936 included bookplates for Mussolini, Lenin, Captain Cook and aviator Kingsford Smith.
A member of the active Australian Ex Libris Society, John Gibson, of Sydney, commissioned Miss Wiseman to do a plate for his collection of Kiwi books, which is shown right . She was in contact with Australian graphic artist , collector, connoisseur and authority on Australian bookplates, Percy Neville Barnett (1881-1953). He wrote , designed and privately published more than 20 limited edition books (some in the Edna Shaw Collection ) and dedicated his life to advancing the tradition of bookplates, according to Wikipedia.
Barnett donated portion of his collection to the Auckland Museum and Miss Wiseman endowed the Auckland Public Library with her work.
George Perrottet received acclaim for his use of lino cuts in pictorial plates which were popular abroad . The fine 1938 example , above, shows an albatross skimming across the waves..
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Printmaker, illustrator and teacher , Harold Byrne ( 1899-l966), is represented in the collection and was well known for figure studies of ballerinas . Ten of his illustrations appeared in the Frogonard Press publication, The Spirit of the Ballet , made from sketches and notes he made while watching performances of the Colonel De Basil’s Monte Carlo Russian Ballet which toured Australia in 1936-37.
ECCENTRIC BISHOP AND OTHERS
Of particular interest is the l932 bookplate , below , designed for a former Anglican Bishop of North Queensland , John Oliver Feetham ( 1873-1947), described as an eccentric , who liked to sleep on the floor rather than in a bed , whose ashes were interred under the high altar at St . James’ Cathedral ,Townsville . Artist N.T. Hope included palm trees, a kangaroo, a cathedral, a sailing boat , a bishop's mitre and an armorial shield.
She returned to Sydney in 1905 with Nora Kate Weston, a woodcarver and fellow Australian, and they established an Australian applied art studio and teaching centre which flourished for over 30 years. Both artists were firmly committed to developing an Australian school of design and worked towards this end by organising societies, setting up studios, writing articles and mounting exhibitions. Mort taught the art of etching to Sydney Ure Smith (1887-1949), a highly influential artist, publisher and promoter of Australian art at home and overseas.
FIRST AUSTRALIAN
The first Australian bookplate is said to have been commissioned in 1892 by flamboyant Sydney solicitor John Lane Mullins . It portrayed a view of the lawyer’s study with a coat of arms. An Ex Libris Society was formed in London about this time and the Studio magazine ran bookplate design competitions. It is not surprising that interest in bookplates suffered as a result of World War 1, but resurfaced in the inter-war period through colour linocut, wood engraving and etching .
* EDNA SHAW : A descendant of the pioneers, William and Mary Bright, after whom Bright Point is named on Magnetic Island , off Townsville . After a business and nursing career , she undertook a four year fine arts degree at the University of Melbourne and worked as a research assistant to Professor Joseph Bourke on his work on the History of British Art of the 18th Century. Over the years she amassed a large collection of books and materials on Australian Art which she dedicated to her late father, John Vernon Shaw, a Townsville baker, which she gave to the Townsville University . It consists of more than 4000 volumes on Australian art and culture . Miss Shaw now lives in Melbourne and keeps in contact with Special Collections Librarian , Bronwyn McBurnie . In 2007, the Townsville Grammar School named the refurbished Ceramic Studio after Edna Shaw.
* This post by Peter Simon , who has several bookplates , including one by Adrian Feint and another made for physicist , Sir Mark Oliphant , depicting a tranquil Australian scene , complete with a kangaroo and koala bear up a tree , when he was involved in research in Britain with Lord Rutherford and others which contributed to the Manhattan Project in America , resulting in development of the atomic bomb. Sir Mark became Governor of South Australia, deplored nuclear weapons and supported euthanasia .
