Her two sons killed in action during WW11, widowed Australian artist , Ida Rentoul Outhwaite , renowned for exquisite representations of fairies , announced that the war had stopped the taste for fairies among parents and that they- the wee folk- had fled, appalled by the atomic bomb.
Over the years she had illustrated many children’s books, sheet music and postcards with distinctive fairy scenes . Although disinclined to continue her prodigious output of fairies, she produced other entrancing work which involved a variety of animals and Teddy bears . Recently a first edition copy of her 1929 book, Fairyland , the spine sunned , was offered for sale in America for $US1495.
The above cover illustration of the 1949 song book THE PUDDIN’ & THE PIXIE is an unusual example of her art, the initials I.R.O. seen bottom right. The drawing of the Christmas pudding on the beach could have been inspired by the artist , sculptor and author Norman Lindsay’s book, The Magic Pudding , which he wrote in 1917 for a bet . Bertram Stevens of The Bulletin magazine maintained children liked to read about fairies , while Lindsay said they liked to read about food. Published in 1918 , it proved a runaway success, and has been translated into many languages , regarded as a classic of children’s literature.
The grumpy looking Magic Pudding drawn by Lindsay was part of a comic fantasy about a pudding who always reformed to his original shape, no matter how much people ate of him. Pudding thieves were always trying to steal him.
The University of Technology Sydney paid $320,000 at auction for a collection of Lindsay’s works which had been compiled over 40 years by cartoonist James Kemsley who continued James Bancks’s Ginger Meggs comic character for 23 years. The collection included a first run, first edition of The Magic Pudding , valued at $6000. I met Kemsley, who actively promoted Australian black and white artists , an admirer of Sun newspaper caricaturist Tony Rafty, when he lived at Bowral, NSW ; he died , aged 59, from motor neuron disease in 2007.
The daughter of a Presbyterian minister, Ida Rentoul Outhwaite was brought up in an artistic and literary family. In 1903 , she and her older sister , Annie , who graduated from Melbourne University , combined to produce six stories for New Idea ; Annie, a longtime teacher at the Presbyterian Ladies College , who never married, provided the text , Ida the drawings.
Ida married a barrister and solicitor who promoted her work . Exhibitions of her work were well received in Paris and London . Her drawing of a " fairy witch " with a black cat was exceedingly popular. The collection of songs in the above book , bearing the stamp of the now non existant MARGARET FURNISS SCHOOL OF DANCING , Townsville, North Queensland , which taught hundreds of local children from 1970-l995, includes the PANTOMIME FAIRY and BEARS AND GOBLINS . The back cover has an advert for new song books for children –ABORIGINAL SONGS , PERCY PLATYPUS, FAIRY CLOCKS and HAPPY DAYS .
The two sisters teamed up with composer, pianist, singer, chorister, portrait painter , Georgette Peterson (1863-l947), to produce a number of popular song books for Australian children , see above , also ex-Margaret Furniss School of Dancing. Born in Budapest, nee Lichtenstein, she later graduated in Dresden and in Britain married music educator , author and chorister, Professor F.S. Peterson, who in 1900 was appointed Ormond Professor of Music and Director of the Conservatorium , Melbourne University. Soon after their arrival in Melbourne, Georgette Peterson formed a small women’s choir, regularly conducting them at various public concerts and fund raising efforts for such buildings as the Conservatorium and the Dame Nellie Melba Hall.
In another book of songs ,the cover by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite , a fairy is serenaded by kookaburras.
An October 1919 West Australian newspaper report of a recital said the Sydney soprano, Miss Rene Maxwell, rendered some bush songs written by Annie Rentoul and composed by Georgette Peterson –widow of the former Professor of Music at the University of Melbourne. Other newspaper reports refer to Peterson in connection with the ode God Guide Australia , a fine and patriotic song , and some of her other essentially Australian songs- Little Aborigine, Mother Sea, Kookaburra, Moonboat, and Kangaroo Song.
FAMOUS COMPOSER DISCOVERY
In 2003 , the University of Melbourne Collection Management Project unearthed several “treasures” , including a portrait of the Polish composer, concert pianist and statesman , Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860-1941). The long forgotten painting , in poor condition, signed in the lower right corner with a conjoined GP, followed by 95, the initials thought to be those of Georgette Peterson. It was speculated that the portrait had been brought to Australia by the Petersons in 1901 . Paderewski toured internationally and was a popular guest of artistic circles in London, Paris and later the USA. The university said it was thought that the paths of the much travelled Petersons and Paderewski crossed in the mid-1890s, providing an opportunity for Georgette to paint the portrait . Paderewski made his first Australian concert tour in 1904. The painting has been restored and now hangs in the foyer of the Conservatorium. (By Peter Simon).
