The collecting of prints and drawings began at the National Gallery of Victoria in the 1860s, the same decade in which the institution was founded. The acquisition of artists’ books – which comes under the domain of the Prints & Drawings Department – has long been a part of this collecting activity. In its broadest sense, the policy for acquisitions of Australian prints and drawings focuses on the work of artists based in Melbourne and other regions of Victoria, taking into consideration the fact that there are other state galleries that adopt a similar approach to collecting the art of their own region. Of course, practitioners working in other parts of the country are also collected from time to time.

The NGV’s collection of Australian artists’ books is selective rather than extensive and has been developed alongside the collection of works on paper, with books being considered equally with other paper-based works within an artist’s oeuvre. The gallery’s holdings range from luxurious limited edition publications such as John Brack Nudes 1981-82, and more recently, Fred Williams Music Hall Series, which included a number of posthumously printed etchings, both printed and published by Lyre Bird Press, to much simpler examples – often unlimited in number and made using very simple means - such as Robert Jacks’ series of small hand-stamped books made in New York during the 1970s. These books comprise pages patterned with the imprint of commercially made rubber-stamps that are stapled together and bound with adhesive tape. And, although I don’t have an image of them, we also have a collection of knitted books made during the 1970s by Jenny Christmann – they don’t include images or text, but come complete with pages that can be turned and, if you like, textures and colours that can be read.

What I’m going to do this morning is introduce you to some of the Australian books held in the National Gallery of Victoria’s collection, which will give you just a taste of the treasures that are to be found there, as well as the variety of approaches to the artist’s book that are represented. I’ll then speak briefly about a new way of exhibiting books utilising multimedia technology that we have used in the opening display at the redeveloped gallery on St Kilda Road and give you a demonstration of it.

An important group of nineteenth-century publications were among the first Australian books to be purchased for the NGV’s collection during the 1950s and together, they reflect some of the primary interests of the period, as well as some of the ways in which art was used at the time. They are all quite traditional publications which would have involved collaboration between the artist, printer, typesetter and so on. For this reason, they might also be classified more correctly as illustrated books, rather than artists’ book.

Fanny Anne Charsley’s 1867 book, The Wild Flowers Around Melbourne, documents a large number of indigenous flowers from in and around Melbourne in a series of 14 hand-coloured lithographs. Complete with botanical descriptions by the famed botanist, Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, this volume highlights the intense interest and activity in collecting and classifying the natural world that prevailed during the nineteenth century. It also emphasises the desire people had to disseminate this new information, which the book satisfied so well.

The most important of this group of early books is the large-scale volume of colour lithographs entitled Eugene von Guerard’s Australian Landscapes 1866-68. This publication is regarded as the most significant ‘view book’ produced about Australia during the nineteenth-century – publications that documented aspects of life in the antipodes, in this case, the extraordinary beauty and variety found within the natural environment. This book satisfied the great curiosity that existed in England and Europe about Australia at the time. The copy of this book in the NGV’s collection has an inscription embossed on the cover that tells us it was presented to a John Denovan Gowan Esquire upon his retirement from the (I think) legal firm of Lyell & Gowan, as a mark of respect and esteem on the eve of his departure for Europe in 1872. It would therefore have served as a souvenir for him, also aiding his efforts to describe life in Australia to friends and family at home.

The earliest twentieth-century artist’s book in the collection is Night-fall in the Ti-Tree, a collaboration between Violet Teague and Geraldine Rede in 1905. A small scale book of colour woodcuts – significantly, thought to be the first colour woodcuts produced in Australia – it has the appearance of a children’s book, but presents a cautionary tale in which the primary characters, the rabbits who live among the ti-tree, are exhorted to ‘Flirt tails and away!’ from ‘Man’s merciless traps!’. It was entirely hand-made by the artists in Violet Teague’s Collins Street studio, with the images printed from carved woodblocks in the Japanese manner, where the ink is brushed directly onto the block, resulting in delicate gradations of tone. The Japanese influence continues in the manner in which the book is bound with a simple green silk ribbon, as well as the text, written by Violet Teague in short sharp sentences reminiscent of Haiku poetry.

Four years later in 1909, Geraldine Rede produced another similar book, Little book of trees. The book incorporates woodblock-printed images of predominantly native Australian trees and on the facing pages to six of the illustrations, carefully composed rhyming couplets are printed in letterpress, in which the trees assume an anthropomorphic voice, speaking of their physical characteristics, seasonal behaviour or of the power of nature.

Another significant early twentieth-century artists’ book held in the NGV’s collection is Christian Waller’s striking 1932 publication, The Great Breath. This first slide shows the green cloth-covered folder, which forms the cover of the book and is decorated with a symbolic hand-painted circular motif. Made during a period of intense creativity when Waller was also producing single sheet prints, bookplates and stained-glass windows, this book is regarded as one of her greatest achievements. I believe it is also quite rare within the art of the period.

The title page, contents page and seven designs are all cut from linoblocks. Each design is printed on transfer paper which is then tipped onto the parchment pages of the book. The sharp linearity and decorative geometry of the images echoes the dominant Art deco style of the day - there are also obvious stylistic links to Waller’s work in stained glass.

The subject of the book is the spiritual evolution of mankind, from its base intellectual and physical forms, through imperfection, to rebirth in an ideal state. It reflects Waller’s eclectic interests and the various sources of her imagery, including Theosophy, Greek mythology and numerology. According to the artist Klytie Pate, Christian Waller’s niece, the artist also sold and gave away books which had an edition number that was numerologically appropriate for the buyer!

Skipping forward to the mid-twentieth century, the NGV collection holds a number of artist books that reflect some of the conceptual and performative aspects of contemporary art practice at the time.

Through his involvement with the avant-garde Art and Language group in New York during the late 1960s, Ian Burn’s practice was an integral part of the development of conceptual art, questioning the status of the art object, its relationship to the viewer and the influence of the viewer’s perception on interpretation of the object. Burn’s art also proposed that the concept, or idea, was foremost.

Tim Burn’s book, A pedestrian series of postcards 1976, also utilises the medium of photocopy in a publication that documents an art performance or stunt, in which, after almost being hit by a car while crossing the road during a visit to Mildura, he sent a series of postcards to local residents, randomly selected from the telephone book, asking the question "what about crosswalks in Mildura?’. The book includes colour photocopies of the postcards, as well as copies of some of the newspaper reports about the cards that were published in the Mildura Sunraysia Daily newspaper. One of these articles, published in June 1976, stated, ‘Mystery surrounding the flood of postcards into Mildura from New York is gradually unfolding. Further clues have indicated that the whole thing was an art project undertaken by Tim Burns…The first series (of cards) consists of five photographs of a Mildura intersection. The second was seven solarised and montaged shots of Mildura streets, the third the death of a painter making an effort to paint a crosswalk and the fourth of crossings collaged into place.’ There is a great sense of humour that comes through this book, but essentially it came about as a very practical way for the artist to document the event and subsequent responses.

The strongest part of the NGV’s collection of Australian artist books is in the contemporary field with work produced during the past twenty or so years. In one way, this reflects what might be identified as a resurgence of interest among contemporary artists in the traditional format of the book as a way of presenting their work. Among other things, the book enables a way of working in series, of incorporating text and image, of illustrating a narrative, and so on. I think artists have also responded to the book format in recent years because of the intimate relationship that exists between a book and its viewer and the direct engagement with the art that occurs as a result.

Jennifer Marshall’s Flick Book 1980 contains a series of abstract linocut images in which the central square form is slightly reorientated as one moves through each page. As the title suggests, Flick Book is a contemporary take on the old-fashioned and typically very small book which, through the sequential arrangement of images which vary only minutely, like frames from a film, create the illusion of a moving picture when the pages are flicked through quickly. Of course, given that this book is in a gallery collection, it will actually never be handled in that manner or experienced to its fullest potential!

John Ryrie is a Melbourne based artist-printmaker who, since 1990 has produced a number of artists’ books which both refer to and extend the tradition of the illustrated book. This book, entitled The Fables of Aesop, is the first of two volumes of Aesop’s fables that Ryrie has published to date, and it continues his practice of reinterpreting traditional and classical tales through images based on contemporary life. Like many contemporary artists who make books, apart from the occasional collaboration with a writer or poet, Ryrie is responsible for all aspects of the production of his books, from the text which is printed using hand-set type acquired from a commercial printer and the images printed from boldly cut woodblocks. As a consequence of this creative autonomy, both the conceptual content and material elements are carefully balanced in a way that communicates the artist’s distinct personal aesthetic.

Bea Maddock’s first foray into the production of artist books was in the mid-1960s when she produced, This time, a relatively simple compilation of woodcut images printed alongside her own text. The NGV holds two of her subsequent books, Colour from 1979, a study of colour that grew out of Maddock’s teaching at the Victorian College of the Arts and the desire, in her words, to ‘teach the students that etching didn’t have to be this soupy grey colour that everyone thought etching had to be – that there was a way of making crisp, clear colour if you wanted to.’

The second book, Artifacts from Tromemanner 1990, grew out of an earlier painting, Tromemanner – forgive us our trespass, that is now in the Queensland Art Gallery collection and was one of the first of Maddock’s works to focus on Aboriginal culture and the dispossession of the land. Beneath the painting Maddock incorporated a series of stone artefacts which she had collected, wrapped in fabric and tied with twine. These stone artefacts are depicted on the pages of the book – Maddock traced around them onto etching plates, later adding the delicate tone with monoprinted colour – and a written description of the shape, colouring and purpose of each artefact runs around the edge of each page.

For Czechoslovakian-born artist Petr Herel, the artist’s book has been the chief vehicle for his art. He has made a considerable contribution to the tradition in Australia, running the Graphic Investigation Workshop at the Canberra School of Art for many years, and participating in an artists’ book workshop at Monash University in the early 1990s. This book, entitled Phantom Skin, is composed of four sheets of paper folded inwards on which the text from Rene Daumal is printed in letterpress, and a loose etched membrane which is attached at one edge. This membrane is a translucent animal skin – a physical evocation of the Phantom Skin of the title – and is etched with the image of a fantastic creature. This book, like much of Herel’s other subtle output, is rich with metaphor and symbol.

In 1991, Ruth Johnstone produced a boxed set of four panoramic books in an edition of four, which combined various printmaking techniques, including colour etching, lithography, woodcut and elements of photocopy. In terms of subject matter, the books incorporate the full range of imagery with which Johnstone was involved at the time – symbolic and real landscapes, including Tower Hill in the Western District in Victoria, and various decorative forms - through which she made comment on human intervention in and destruction of the natural environment. What is particularly striking about this series of books is their complex construction and range of formats. Some of the books adopt a concertina format with delicate loose-leaf printed overlays, while others are more standard in their arrangement of pages bound to a rigid cover. Looking at these books is a real experience because one must engage with them in a very physical way, as well as intellectually.

David McDiarmid was one of the first artists to produce work that dealt directly with issues of Gay culture, exhibiting screenprints with overt homosexual imagery at the first Gay art exhibition held at Watters Gallery in Sydney in 1978. Throughout his career, he was also drawn to various print mediums, including photo and laser copying, which enabled relatively easy and mass reproduction of his work. This 1994 book, Toxic Queen, utilises photo and laser copying technology and focuses on various aspects of Gay lifestyle in the age of AIDS – many of the images are drawn from the mass media and popular culture, and many are memorials to friends who have died from the disease.

Angela Cavalieri’s 1999 book entitled Quattro pagine, is the most recent Australian artist’s book in the collection. It combines linocut, collage and screenprinting, with semi-transparent layers of partially printed tissue paper interleaved between the pages, evocatively veiling the bold imagery below. It was bound by George Matoulas, also an artist in his own right, who often collaborates in this way with other Melbourne-based artists making books. The title, Quattro pagine, literally translates as ‘four pages’, however it is also a familiar Italian colloquialism used to describe an individual’s life story. The words and letters that make up the phrase are dissected and fragmented throughout the pages of the book, creating a narrative portrait that goes beyond the written word to find new visual forms and meaning.

I want to talk now just briefly about the exhibition of this material at the NGV. Traditionally, whenever books are displayed in exhibitions we display them in cases, laying flat and open to the desired page or, if the binding is too tight to safely allow this, standing on individually designed Perspex stands with the pages held open by transparent Mylar strips.

Of course, this poses a number of limitations and problems, the most significant of which is the fact that only one page can be seen, unless one has the staffing resources to undertake turning pages at weekly intervals throughout the exhibition.

In an attempt to address these issues, we have included a multimedia display in the first exhibition of Prints & Drawings at the St Kilda Road gallery which enables visitors to virtually turn the pages of the books, using a simple touchscreen facility, and to zoom in on details of particular interest. The books are also displayed in the normal way in a nearby case

[demonstration / discussion of advantages versus disadvantages]

As I said at the outset, the books I’ve shown you today represent only a small portion of the NGV’s holdings of work by Australian artists and we also hold important international examples by artists as varied as William Morris – publications from his Kelmscott Press - Francesco Clemente, Eduardo Paolozzi and David Hockney. The Gallery on St Kilda Road reopened in December last year after a four year redevelopment and the Prints and Drawings Department has a study room which, from March, will be open by appointment to view works in the collection. So please accept this as an open invitation to all of you to visit us sometime and turn the pages of some of the wonderful books held in the Melbourne collection.