Australia Described - Douglas Stewart Fine Books

30122. WILCOX, Dora. Seven poems. With hand coloureddecorations by Donald Finley. Sydney : Hand Press of J. T.Kirtley, 1924. Octavo, decorated wrappers (the yapp edgescreased), 12pp., hand coloured vignette illustrations, verygood. Limited to 125 copies of which 100 were for sale,signed by the author and artist. Presentation copy fromthe artist in the year of publication. The second book fromKirtley’s hand press, later revamped as The FanfrolicoPress, published in the period between Fauns and Ladiesand The Thief of the Moon. $550123. LINDSAY, Jack. Lysistrata. By Aristophanes. Done into Englishverse by Jack Lindsay with illustrations and decorations byNorman Lindsay. Sydney: Fanfrolico Press, 1925. Quarto,quarter white cloth over gilt-stamped boards, tipped-inplates by Norman Lindsay. Limited to 136 copies, signed byJack Lindsay. Very fine. ‘The first title to appear under theimprint of The Fanfrolico Press’. Arnold 5. $1800124. PRESTON, Margaret. Protea. 1925. Hand colouredwoodblock print measuring 24.6 x 24.4cm, signed in image‘M.P.’, inscribed in pencil ‘17th proof – Protea’ and signed inpencil ‘Margaret Preston’. From the hand coloured editionof 50, there also being an uncoloured edition of 50. A fineexample with full margins, the colour strong, printed onJapanese paper.A rare and fine Margaret Preston woodblock of the Protea,a species originally from South Africa, but popularlyconsidered as an Australian native. Three examples arerecorded in Australian collections; in the Art Gallery ofNew South Wales, the Art Gallery of South Australia, andthe National Gallery of Australia (an uncoloured edition).The only record of Protea selling at auction in the pastforty years is this copy, at Christie’s London in 1990.Preston’s Australian wildflowers were hugely popularwhen first exhibited, their stylised form attuned withcontemporary art deco trends towards simplicity, design,and a focus on the home. In Art in Australia, fellowmodernist Thea Proctor writes:‘Australia should be grateful to Mrs. Preston for having liftedthe native flowers of the country from the rut of disgraceinto which they have fallen by their mistreatment in art andcraft work, and through the very many bad paintings whichhave been done of them. Her gay and vivid woodcuts ofnative flowers, original and beautiful in design, are an idealwall decoration for the simply furnished house’.Thea Proctor, An artist’s appreciation of Margaret Preston,in Art in Australia, Third Series, Number 22, 1927, (MargaretPreston Number, Protea illustrated plate 33).Reference: BUTLER, Roger. The Prints of MargaretPreston: a catalogue raisonne. Canberra: National Galleryof Australia, 2005. Catalogue no. 106.