Books + Art - Douglas Stewart Fine Books

A bookplate by Pro Hart
MARLING, Karal Ann
# 1590
Stoke-on-Trent : The Lytlewode Press, 2011. Octavo, orange cloth in
matching slipcase, spine lettered in gilt, yellow endpapers, 12 pp., two
photographs of Pro Hart and publisher Robert C. Littlewood, both
signed by Littlewood, original etched bookplate by Pro Hart tipped in.
Limited to 275 copies signed and numbered by the publisher. A fine
contemporary study of an Australian bookplate by noted American
academic Karal Ann Marling, Associate Professor of Art History at the
University of Minnesota.
$ 220
Waltzing Matilda
LITTLEWOOD, Robert C.
# 94
A poem by Andrew Barton ‘Banjo’ Paterson, etchings by Kevin
Charles ‘Pro’ Hart. Stoke-on-Trent [U.K.]: The Lytlewode Press, 2007.
Large folio bound in goatskin, gilt-lettering to spine, in a gilt-lettered
and felt-lined clamshell box, 42pp. text, plus seven tipped-in original
hand-coloured Pro Hart etchings, each signed by Pro Hart. This is
the publisher’s special edition of ‘Waltzing Matilda’. It is limited to 25
copies plus hors d’commerce, and signed and numbered by Robert
Littlewood. Robert Littlewood first published ‘Waltzing Matilda in
1995 while Pro Hart was still alive. The 1995 edition was limited to
100 copies, and contained a copy of the poem, plus seven signed
Pro Hart etchings printed in the chine colle method. There was no
additional text. This 2007 edition is a different and superior publication.
The etchings are intaglio impressions on the rag paper, and then
hand-coloured according to Pro Hart’s direction. It contains 20 pages
of original research by Littlewood on the story of ‘Waltzing Matilda’
and the social and political context of the story. The essay researches
the powerful union movement, the shearers’ strikes and the social
circumstance of the squatters in regional New South Wales, examining
how these influenced Lawson’s writings and also the naive artworks of
Pro Hart.
$ 3,300
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