First in a series - abridged and rerun - 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-l971), a painter , involved with Art in Australia for ll years , who in l930 held an exhibition of bookplates in the Library of Congress, Washington; George D. Perrottet , whose bookplate designs were the subject of a special review in the l934 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.
A surprise find in the collection is a 1900 Adrian Feint ex libris bookplate for Dr McDonnell, of Toowoomba ,Queensland, who in 1897 treated 17-year-old Elizabeth Kenny for a broken wrist who fell from a horse.
While in his care , she studied his anatomy books and model skeleton,eventually taking up nursing. She became the "legendary " Sister Kenny ,particularly famous for her method of treating polio sufferers.
Dr McDonnell is said to have been her mentor and advisor in the l920s 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 Australian Surgeons.
In l932 , 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 1940, she visited the United States where her methods were favourably received and Kenny Clinics opened in that country despite some opposition.
Congress honoured her in l950 and in l952 she was voted the most admired person 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.
BUSHFIRE , OLYMPIC SWIMMER .
A 1926 Feint bookplate was made for John Gartner, a collector well known in numismatic, philatelic and decorative arts. The Gartner house in Mount Macedon ,Victoria, along with all its fabulous collections, was destroyed by Ashe 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-l969). 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 he won 350 trophies and more than 100 medals.
In 1900 he became Australia's first swmming representative at the Paris Olympics , where he won the 200 metres freestyle title in 2 minutes 25.2 seonds, 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 l974 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.
Returning to Australia, Lane became a master printer and partner in the Sydney stationery firm of Smith and Lane . Interested in art, literature , model building , stamps, cigarette cards and newspaper cuttings , he also had a collection of works by marine artists Jack Spurling and John Allcott .
Norman Lindsay paintings and literary works were another of his interests ; he wrote and printed a book on Lindsay's bookplates.
Norman Lindsay is represented in the Shaw Collection by the above bookplate which appears to depict printers imps producing a book on a Caxton-like press for a person with the name H ( possibly Herr because he was German ), Jalmar Josephi, who appears to have been a musical linguist, connoisseur of rare books , even a collector of ancient weapons . There is a copy in the National Library of Australia.
* 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 about 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 . In 2007,the Townsville Grammar School renamed the refurbished Ceramic Studio after Edna Shaw .
( Townsville ,University , Collections).
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