A Basic Bibliography of Australian Art

A list of useful, if not essential, resources for researching Australian art. (The emphasis is on books which also include biographical information or ‘leads’ on lesser-known Australian artists. The following list is in no way complete. Contemporary artists do not really enter the scope of this survey, nor does it adequately cover photography, architecture, ceramics etc. Aboriginal art is barely covered. I am in the process of developing a bibliography of printed material related to all Australian art and there are currently over 10,000 items entered in my computer database. A summary of this project appears at the end of this basic bibliography).

 

The standard general histories (in order of publication):

 

William Moore, The Story of Australian Art, 2 vols, Angus & Robertson, 1934. (Includes a dictionary of Australian artists but is perhaps more useful now for its extensive 23-page index).

 

Herbert Badham, A Study of Australian Art, Currawong Publishing, 1949 (and Badham’s companion’ book A Gallery of Australian Art, Currawong Publishing, 1954)

 

Bernard Smith, Australian Painting, Oxford University Press, 1962. (This is my sentimental favourite being the first book I purchased on Australian art. Possibly my favourite book on Australian art is Smith’s The Boy Adeodatus,Alan Lane, 1984.See also Bernard Smith’s Place Taste and Tradition, Ure Smith, 1945, European Vision & the South Pacific 1768-1850, Oxford University Press, 1960, Documents on art and taste in Australia, OUP, 1975 and The Antipodean Manifesto – Essays in Art and History, OUP, 1976).

 

Clive Turnbull, Elizabeth Young, Daniel Thomas, Australian Painting – Colonial, Impressionist, Contemporary, Griffin Press, softcover, 1962. Also published in hardcover as Antipodean Vision).

 

Robert Hughes, The Art of Australia, Penguin, 1966.

 

James Gleeson, Australian Painters – Colonial 1788 – 1880, Impressionists 1881 -1930, Modern 1931 – 1970, Lansdowne Press, 1971 and subsequent editions (previously published in three separate volumes).

 

Geoffrey Searle, The Creative Spirit in Australia – A Cultural History, William Heinemann, 1987 (originally published as From Deserts the Prophets Come, William Heinemann, 1973).

 

Graeme Sturgeon The Development of Australian Sculpture, 1788 – 1975, Thames & Hudson, 1978.

 

Daniel Thomas (edited and introduced by), Creating Australia, 200 Years of Art 1788-1988, Art Gallery of South Australia, 1988.

 

Daniel Thomas, Outlines of Australian Art [the Joseph Brown Collection], Macmillan, 1989 (two previous editions in 1973 and 1980).

 

Marcie Muir, A history of Australian children’s book illustration, OUP, 1982.

 

Jean Campbell, Australian Watercolour Painters 1780 to the Present Day, Craftsman House, 1989 (second edition). (Includes alphabetical extensive listing of biographies of painters in watercolour).

 

Robert Holden, A Golden Age – Visions of Fantasy, Australia’s Fantasy Illustrators: Their lives and works, Angus & Roberston, 1992 (volume one of two volumes).

 

Vivien Johnson, Aboriginal Artists of the Western Desert, Craftsman House, 1994. (Biographical details of several hundred artists).

 

Mary Eagle and John Jones, A Story of Australian Art, Macmillan, 1994 (based on the ICI Collection, now mostly in the Kerry Stokes Collection. There are also useful catalogues of other corporate collections such as the Elders-IXL Collection, 1986, and the ANZ Collection, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, 2006)).

 

Christopher Allen, Art in Australia, Thames and Hudson, 1997.

 

Andrew Sayers, Australian Art, Oxford University Press, Oxford History of Art series, 2001.

 

Janusz B. Kreczmanski and Margo Birnberg, Aboriginal Artists – dictionary of biographies, Central Desert, Western Desert & Kimberly Region, J. B. Publishing, 2004. (Includes the names of more than 1000 Aboriginal artists and biographical data).

 

Susan McCulloch, McCulloch’s Contemporary Aboriginal Art: The Complete Guide, McCulloch & McCulloch, 2009

 

Wally Caruana, Aboriginal Art, Thames & Hudson, 1993.

 

Howard Morphy, Aboriginal Art, Phaidon, 2001.

 

Roger Butler, Printed, 3 vols., including Printed images in colonial Australia 1801 – 1901, Printed images by Australian artists 1885- 1955 and Printed images by Australian artists 1955 – 2005, NGA, 2007-10. (The most extensive coverage of printmaking in Austraia).

 

John McDonald, Art of Australia, Pan Macmillan, Vol 1 (of three planned volumes) 2008.

 

[See also publications by public galleries which document their Australian collections such as Australian Art in the National Gallery of Australia, NGA, 2002, or Brought to Light – Australian Art 1850-1965 From the Queensland Art Gallery Collection, edited by Lynne Seear & Julie Ewington, QAG, 1998.

 

See also the many critical commentaries published in the past twenty years, such as The Necessity of Australian Art by Ian Burn, et al, The Australian Scapegoat by Peter Fuller and Ghost Nation – Imagined Space and Australian Visual Culture 1901- 1939 by Laurie Duggan, which are not included here].

 

Dictionaries, checklists, encyclopedias and indexes:

 

Australian Art – Artist’s working names authority list, compiled by Helen Maxwell, assisted by Philippa Kelly, Australian National Gallery, 1990, 489 pp. (First published 1983, updated September, 1989.A project to standardise the names of Australian artists, the alphabetical listing also provides birth and death dates where known. A note in the introduction says that: ‘Minor 20th-century names are too numerous to be welcome on the list at this stage’. My estimate is that about 6250 names are recorded).

 

Often the best starting point when searching for information on a particular artist is the Australian Artists’ Index – A Biographical Index of Australian Artists, Craft Workers, Photographers and Architects by Jan Macdonald, published by the Arts Libraries Socirty, Australia and New Zealand, Sydney, 1986. This lists about 10,000 artists who are referred to in at least one of over 400 books relating to Australian art.

 

Art and Artists to 1950: a bibliography based on the holdings of the State Library of Victoria. State Library of Victoria , 1982. (This includes exhibition catalogues held and books illustrated by artists).

 

McCulloch’s Encyclopedia of Autralian Art(There are earlier editions and these are worth checking for individual artists who may have dropped out of the 2007 edition).

 

The Dictionary of Australian Art – painters, sketchers, photographers and Engravers to 1870, edited by Joan Kerr,Oxford University Press, 1992.(Now updated and online – see website below).

 

Heritage – The National Women’s Art Book – 500 works by 500 Women Artists from Colonial Times to 1935, edited by Joan Kerr, Art & Australia/Craftsman House, 1995.

 

Dictionary of Australian Biography, Index for Vols 1 – 12, Melbourne University Publishing, 1991.

 

Artists & Galleries of Australia, 2 vols., by Max Germaine, Craftsman House, 1990. (There are earlier editions and these are worth checking for individual artists who may have dropped out of the latest edition).

 

Renniks Australian Artists by John Kroeger, Renniks, 1968. (This provides basic biographical information on those artists represented in public galleries prior to 1968).

 

Who’s Who of Australian Visual Artists, Thorpe in association with National Association for the Visual Arts, 1991 (fist edition, 356pp), 1995 (2nd edition, 395pp)

 

Directory of Australian Printmakers, edited by Lilian Wood, Print Council of Australia, 1976. Second edition 1982. (The 1982 edition lists over 300 printmakers with biographies, exhibition details, etc, and the 1988 edition lists 560 entries and is illustrated).

 

A Dictionary of Women Artists of Australia, by Max Germaine, Craftsman House, 1991. (Women artists exhibiting around the time of publication).

 

Juliet Peers, More than Just Gumtrees – A Personal, Social and Artistic History of the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors, Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors in association with Dawn Revival Press, 1993. (Includes alphabetic listing of artists’ biographical entries).

 

Ambrus, Caroline (compiled by), The Ladies’ Picture Show – Sources on a century of Australian women artists, Hale & Ironmonger, 1984. (Australian women artits are listed in alphabetical order. Extremely useful for the lists of newspaper reviews of their exhibitions ).

 

Ken Scarlett, Australian Sculptors, Thomas Nelson, 1980, 730pp. (Alphabetical listing of sculptors with biographical information which often includes reviews and other primary sources).

 

Fifty Years of Australian Art 1879 – 1929, published by the Royal Art Society Press, 1929. (While this provides a ‘biographical list’ of about 60 artists who exhibited with the RAS, it is more useful for its ‘List of Exhibitors 1879 – 1929’. Hundreds of names of obscure artists are listed, together with the date of joining, or first exhibiting with, the Society).

 

The Studio Tradition – National Art School 1883 – 2001, exhibition at the Manly Art Gallery & Museum, 2001, curated by Therese Kenyon, p39. (This lists students and teachers but does not claim to be complete).

 

Von Guerard to Wheeler – The First Teachers at the National Gallery School 1870 – 1939, exhibition catalogue published by the Victorian College of the Arts, 1978, 20pp. (This includes brief biographies of nine teachers but, more importantly, it lists students enrolled from 1870 and also prize winners in the various schools).

 

Art in Australia 1916- 1942, Artist Index (preliminary version for limited circulation), [State]Library of NSW, 1973. (Alphabetical index of all artists whose work is illustrated in Art in Australia – published between 1916 and 1942 – together with the titles of works illustrated).

 

Art & Australia, a quarterly periodical, index for the years 1963 – 1973.

 

Fine Art Exhibitions in Brisbane 1884 – 1916, by Julie K. Brown and Margaret Maynard, Fryer Memorial Library, 1980, 227pp. (Has ‘biographies of selected artists’ but most importantly lists all exhibitors with the various Queensland art societies together with the titles of exhibits).

 

Helen Fridemanis, Artists and Aspects of the Contemporary Art Society – Queensland Branch, Boolarong Publications, 1991. (Includes biographies of exhibiting artists)

 

Keith Bradbury and Glenn R. Cooke, Thorns and Petals – 100 Years of the Royal Queensland Art Society, RQAS, 1988. (Includes an extensive chronology).

 

Edward D. Craig, Australian Art Auction Records, vol. 1 1973-5 to vol. 13 2001-3. (Also online, see below)

 

Australian Art Sales Directory, (Also online, see below)

 

Anthony Bradley, Handlist of Fine Arts Fourth Year Essays and Theses 1971 – 1988 in the Power Institute Research Library of Contemporary Art, Power Institute of Fine Arts Occasional Paper No. 8, 1990. (I estimate that over 3000 essays are listed. It may be possible that other university art history departments have such listings. Access to the actual essays may well be restricted).

 

 

General, useful, or well-illustrated books (or ‘compendiums’ of information) listed by period (approximately).

 

Bernard Smith and Alwyne Wheeler, editors, The Art of the First Fleet and other early Australian drawings. Selected from Australian subjects of the period in the British Natural History Museum, OUP, Melbourne. 1988

Lisa Di Tommaso, The Art of the First Fleet, Hardie Grant Books, 2012.

Louise Anemaat, Natural Curiosity – Unseen art of the First Fleet, SLNSW, 2014, 256pp with index.

Tim McCormick, First Views of Australia 1788 – 1825 – A history of early Sydney, David Ell Press/Logueville Publications, 1987. (An essential record of images and information. For early-colonial printed images see also The Antipodes Observed – Prints and Printmakers of Australia 1788 – 1850, by Cedric Flower, Macmillan, 1975, and Sydney Views 1788 – 1888, from the Beat Knoblauch collection, by Susan Hunt and Graeme Davison, Historic Houses Trust, 2007).

 

Eve Buscombe, Artists in Early Australia and their Portraits – A guide for the Portrait painters of Early Australia with special reference to Colonial New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land to 1850 – with detailed biographies. Catalogues of works and sources of Australian portraiture, Eureka Research, 1978. (Not infallible but essential when researching colonial portraits).

 

Rex and Thea Rienits, Early Artists of Australia, Angus & Robertson, 1963. (The first publication dedicated to the colonial period and very interesting for that reason).

 

National Australia Bank calendars. (These have been published annually since the 1950s with 12 illustrations in each calendar and text on social and historical subjects and the artists).

 

Clifford Craig, The Engravers of Van Diemen’s Land, Tasmanian Historical Research Association, 1961; Old Tasmanian Prints, , Foot & Playsted, 1964; More Old Tasmanian Prints, , Foot & Playsted, 1984; Notes on Tasmania, Foot & Playsted, 1986. (Together they provide detailed information on printmaking as it relates to Tasmania in the nineteenth century).

 

Jocelyn Hackforth-Jones, The Convict Artists, Macmillan, 1977. (Information on Australian colonial art specifically related to the convict artists).

 

The Artist and the patron – Aspects of Colonial Art in New South Wales, by Patricia R. McDonald and Barry Pearce, Art Gallery of NSW, 1988. (Presents a highly useful range of images and information. See also the earlier AGNSW exhibition catalogue Australian Art in the 1870s by Daniel Thomas, 1976).

 

Shar Jones, Early Painters of Australia – 1788 – 1880, Bay Books, [1988].

 

Barbara Chapman, The Colonial Eye – a topographical and artistic record of the life and landmarks of Western Australia 1798 – 1914, AGWA, 1979.

 

Tim Bonyhady, Australian Colonial Paintings in the Australian National Gallery, ANG [NGA], 1986. (See also Bonyhady’s other publications including Images in Opposition – Australian Landscape Painting 1801 – 1890, OUP, 1985, The Colonial Image, Australian National Gallery/Ellsyd Press, 1987 and The Colonial Earth, The Miegunyah Press, 2000).

 

Ron Radford, Jane Hylton, Australian Colonial Art 1800 – 1900, Art Gallery of South Australia, 1995.

 

Alan McCulloch, Artists of the Australian Gold Rush, Lansdowne Press, 1977.

 

[Noel Hutchison], Early Australian Sculpture From its beginnings up to circa 1920, exhibition catalogue, Ballarat Fine Art Gallery, 1977. (Includes sculptors’ biographies as well as catalogue details).

 

Australian Impressionism, Terrence Lane, National Gallery of Victoria, 2007. (The most thoroughly researched and extensive publication on Australia to date. But see also, for example, The Golden Age of Australian Painting – Impressionism and the Heidelberg School by Alan McCulloch, Landsowne, 1969; Australian Impressionist Painters by William Splatt and Susan Bruce, Lloyd O’Neil Pty. Ltd, 1981 – republished in 1986 as The Heidelberg School – The Golden Summer of Australian Painting; Golden Summers – Heidelberg and Beyond, by Jane Clark and Bridget Whitelaw, National Gallery of Victoria, 1985, Sunlight and Shadow by Leigh Astbury, Bay Books, 1989 and The Artists’ Camps – ‘Plein air’ Painting in Australia, by Helen Topliss, Hedley Australia, 1992); Impressions – Painting Light & Life, introduction by Louise Doyle, Director, National Portrait Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, 2011.

 

Well-illustrated Ure Smith books from around the 1940s: Australian Art Annual 1939, edited by Sydney Ure Smith, Ure Smith Pty. Limited, 1939 (only one such annual issued); Present Day Art in Australia, edited by Sydney Ure Smith, Ure Smith Pty. Limited, 1943, and Present Day Art in Australia, Number 2, edited by Sydney Ure Smith, Ure Smith Pty. Limited, 1945. (There is also a new and revised edition of numbers 1 & 2 published in 1949). Art and Design – A Ure Smith Publication, First Number, 1949, announced as being published ‘twice yearly’ but only one copy issued. Ure Sith also published Present Day Art in Australia, edited by Mervyn Horton, in 1969 and Australian Painters of the 70s, also edited by Mervyn Horton, in 1975.

 

A Memorial Volume to Howard Hinton, Patron of Art, Angus and Robertson, 1951. (Includes a complete listing of over 1000 works collected by Howard Hinton and now in the New England Regional Art Museum. A well-illustrated and useful record of one person’s collection of Australian art, mainly of painting from the first half of the twentieth century).

 

Ian Burn, National Life & Landscapes – Australian painting 1900-1940, Bay Books [1991]. (Explores ‘traditional’ landscape painting dominant in Australia in the first half of the twentieth century).

 

Heather Johnson, the Sydney art patronage system 1890 – 1940, Bungoona Technologies, 1997. (Provides extensive information on the ‘fabric’ of the Sydney art world of the period including on galleries, societies and dealers).

 

Colour in Art, – Revisiting 1919, IDG, COFA, UNSW, 2008.

 

Making Australian Art 1916-49 – Sydney Ure Smith, Patron and Publisher, by Nancy D. H. Underhill, Oxford University Press, 1991.

 

Lesley Harding and Sue Cramer, Cubism & Australian Art, Miengunyah Pressm 2009.

 

Richard Haese, Rebels and Precursors – The Revolutionary Years of Australian Art, Alex Lane, 1981.

 

Tracy Lock-Weir, Misty Moderns – Australian Tonalists 1915 – 1950, Art Gallery of South Australia, 2008.

 

Geoffrey Dutton, The Innovators – the Sydney alternative in the rise of modern art, literature and ideas, Macmillan, 1986. (RA response to Haese’s Rebels and Precursors which looks at other Australian art outside Melbourne).

 

Ann Stephen, Andrew McNamara, Philip Goad, Modernism & Australia – Documents on Art, Design and Architecture 1917 – 1967, The Miegunyah Press, 2006. (A compendium of primary sources). And Stephen Ann, Goad Philip, McNamara Andre, Modern Times – the Untold Story of Modernism in Australia, The Miegunyah Press, 2008. (See also for example Australian Modern Painting – Between the wars 1914 – 1939 by Mary Eagle, and Early Sydney Moderns – John Young and the Macquarie Galleries 1916 – 1946, by Jean Campbell).

 

Harriet Edquist, Pioneers of Modernism – The Arts and Crafts Movement in Australia, Miegunyah Press, 2008.

 

Andrew Montana, The art movement in Australia : design, taste and society 1875-1900, Miegunyah Press, 2000

 

Grace Cochrane, The Crafts Movement in Australia: A History, NSW University Press, 1992.

 

Charles Merewether, Art & Social Commitment – an end to the city of dreams 1931 – 1948, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1984.

 

Joan Kerr, A Singular Voice, Essays on Australian Art and Architecture, edited by Candice Bruce, Dinah Dysart and Jo Holder,Power Publications, 2009.

 

Nicholas Draffin, Australian Woodcuts and Linocuts of the 1920’s & 30’s, Sun Books, 1976.

 

Roger Butler, A Survey of Australian Relief Prints 1900 – 1950, Deutscher Fine Art,1978.

 

Kirsty Grant, In Relief – Australian wood engravings, woodcuts and linocuts, NGV, 1997.

 

The Antipodeans – Challenge and Response in Australian Art 1955 – 1966, NGA, 1999.

 

Jennifer Phipps, I Had a Dream – Australian Art in the 1960s, NGV, 1997.

 

Kym Bonython, Modern Australian Paintings, Rigby (There are five volumes altogether, 1950-1960, 1950 – 1975, 1960 – 70, 1970 – 1975, and 1975 – 1980).

 

John Douglas Pringle, Australian Painting Today, Thames and Hudson, 1963.

 

R. K. Luck, Modern Australian painting, Sun Books, 1969.

 

Craig McGregor, et al., Australian Art in the Making, Thomas Nelson, 1979, (An eclectic reportage of art-making in the 1960s with numerous photographs of a selection of artists working).

 

Ronald Millar, Civilised Magic – An interpretive guide to Australian Paintings, Thames and Hudson, 1975. (The focus is on the 1960s and 1970s).

 

Christopher Heathcote, A Quiet Revolution – The Rise of Australian Art 1946 -1968, Text, 1995.

 

Terry Ingram, A Matter of Taste – Investing in Australian Art, Collins, 1976. (A record of the art market in Australia by the Australian Financial Review’s ‘Saleroom’ columnist).

 

Other books on movements, schools or groups of artists

 

Andrew Sayers, Aboriginal Artists of the Nineteenth Century, Oxford, 1994.

 

This Wondrous Land – Colonial Art on Paper, edited by Alisa Bunbury, NGV, 2011.

 

Australian Impressionists in France by Elena Taylor, National Gallery of Victoria exhibition catalogue, NGV, 2013, pb, 178pp, with index.

 

Christopher Chapman, Surrealism in Australia, NGA, 1993.

 

Michael Lloyd, Ted Gott and Christopher Chapman, Surrealism – Revolution by Night, NGA, 1993.

 

Bruce James, Australian Surrealism – The Agapitos/Wilson Collection, The Beagle Press, 2003.

 

Mary Eagle and Jan Minchin, The George Bell School – Students, Friends, Influences, Deutscher Art Publications/Resolution Press, 1981.

 

Peter and John Perry, Max Meldrum & Associates – Their Art, Lives and Influences, Castlemaine Art Gallery and Historical Museum, 1996.

 

Angry Penguins and Realist Painting in Melbourne in the 1940s, Hayward Gallery, London, exhibition catalogue, 1988.

 

Sydney Moderns – Art for a New World, curated by Deborah Edwards and Denise Mimmocchi, Art Gallery of NSW, 2013.

 

Bernard Smith (Introduction), The Windsor Group 1935-1945, Edwards & Shaw, 1989.

 

[Jewish Artists in Australia] 1828 – 1978 – An exhibition to mark the Centenary of the Great Synagogue and the 150th anniversary of Jewish communal life in Australia, introduced by Mervyn Horton, 1978. (Includes photographs and biographies of about 50 artists)

 

Latvian Artists in Australia, Society of Latvian Artists in Australia, 1979.

 

Barry Pearce, Swiss Artists in Australia, AGNSW, 1991.

 

Roger Butler (ed.), The Europeans: Émigré artists in Australia 1930 – 1960, NGA, 1997.

 

Sandra Warner Australian Naïve Art, Craftsman House, 1994

 

Jenny Zimmer (ed.), Abstract Art in Australia – A selection from the past thirty years, RMIT Gallery, 1983.

 

David Pestorius (ed), Geometric Painting in Australia 1941 – 1997, University Art Museum, University of Queensland, 1997.

 

Therese Kenyon, Under a Hot Tin Roof – art, passion and politics at the Tin Sheds Art Workshop, Power Publications, 1995.

 

Publications about Australian women artists:

 

Caroline Jordan, Picturesque Pursuits – Colonial Women Artists & the Amateur Tradition, Melbourne University Press, 2005.

 

Australian Women Artists, One Hundred Years: 1840 – 1940, catalogue for the Travelling Exhibition, 1975, Ewing and George Paton Galleries, 1975.

 

Rachel Biven, Some Forgotten… Some Remembered… Women Artists of South Australia, Sydenham Gallery, 1976.

 

Janine Burke, Australian Women Artists 1840 – 1940, Greenhouse, 1980. (See also her Field of Vision – A Decade of Change: Women’s Art in the Seventies).

 

A Century of Australian Women Artists 1840s – 1940s, Deutscher Fine Art, 1993.

 

Jane Hylton, Modern Australian Women – paintings & prints 1925 – 1945, AGSA, 2000.

 

Shirley Cameron Wilson, From Shadow into Light – South Australia Women Artists Since Colonisation, Delmont, 1988.

 

Jane Hylton, South Australian Women Artists: 1890s – 1940s, AGSA, 1994;

 

Caroline Ambrus, Australian Women Artists, First Fleet to 1945: History, Hearsay and Her Say, Irrepressible Press, 1992.

Victoria Hammond and Juliet Peers, Completing the Picture – Women Artists and the Heidelberg Era, Artmoves, 1992.

 

Jennifer Phipps, Creators & Inventors – Australian Women’s Art in the National Gallery of Victoria, NGV, 1993.

 

In the Company of Women – 100 Years of Australian Women’s Art from the Cruthers Collection, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, 1995.

 

Helen Topliss, Modernism and Feminism – Australian Women Artists 1900 – 1940, Craftsman House, 1996.

 

Joan Kerr, Jo Holder (eds). Past Present – The National Women’s Art Anthology, Craftsman House, 1999;

 

150 Victorian Women Artists produced by Women 150, nd., (biographies of contemporary150 artists)

Sandy Kirby, Sight Lines – Women’s Art and Feminist Perspectives in Australia, Craftsman House, 1992.

 

Anna Voigt, New Visions – New Perspectives – Voices of Contemporary Australian Women Artists, Craftsman House, 1996.

 

Into the Light – The Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, edited by John Cruthers & Lee Kinsella with contributions by Ted Snell, Juliette Peers and Sally Quin, University of Western Australia Press, nd [2012].

 

Publications on black and white art

 

George Blakie, Remember Smith’s Weekly – A Biography of An Uninhibited National Australian Newspaper, Rigby, 1966.

 

Peter Coleman, Les Tanner, cartoons of Australian history, Thomas Nelson, 1967.

 

Marguerite Mahood, The Loaded Line – Australian Political Caricature 1788 – 1901, Melbourne University Press, 1973.

 

50 Years of the Newspaper Cartoon in Australia 1924 – 1973, published by The News, Adelaide, 1973.

 

Jonathon King, The Other Side of the Coin – A Cartoon History of Australia, Cassell, 1976 (revised 1979).

 

Patricia Rolfe, The Journalistic Javelin – an illustrated history of The Bulletin, Wildcat Press, 1979.

 

Vane Lindesay, The Inked-in Image – A Social and Historical Survey of Australian Comic Art, Hitchinson, 1979.

 

Bonzer – Australian comics 1900s – 1990s edited by Annette Shiell, National Centre for Australian Studies, 1998.

 

Joan Kerr, Artists &Cartoonists In Black & White: The Most Public Art, ANU, 1999.

 

Examples of publications on artists in specific regions

 

Some examples are: Historic Sydney as seen by its Early Artists by Susanna de Vries-Evans; The Artists of Hill End by Gavin Wilson; Artists of Lane Cove by Judy Washington; Landscape Art of the Blue Mountains, by Hugh Spiers; Downs Artists – A Changing Landscape, by Noni Durack and Pamela King [Darling Downs]; Pioneers & Painters – One Hundred Years of Eltham and its Shire by Alan Marshall; Visions of Adelaide 1836 – 1886 by Tracy Lock-Weir; Art and Artists of South Australia by Nancy Benko; Arid Arcadia – Art of the Flinders Ranges, by Alisa Bunbury; South Australia Illustrated – Colonial painting in the Land of Promise, by Jane Hylton, AGSA, 2012; Art in Queensland 1859 – 1959, by Vida Lahey; Historic Brisbane and its Early Artists by Susanna Evans; A Time Remembered, Art in Brisbane 1950 – 1975 by Glenn R, Cooke; Artist in the Tropics – 200 Years of Art in North Queensland by Ross Searle; Escape Artists – modernists in the tropics by Gavin Wilson; Tasmanian Vision – The art of nineteenth century Tasmania, Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery, 1988; Tasmanian Artists of the Twentieth Century by Sue Backhouse; Fifty Years of Painting in Tasmania 1925-1975 by Don & Maggie Row; Western Australian Art and Artists 1900 – 1950 by Janda Gooding; A Survey of Western Australian Art from 1696, by Arthur Spartalis, Arthur Spartalis Fine Art, 2008; Cinderella on the Beach – A source book of Western Australia’s Visual Culture, by Ted Snell; The Artists of Rottnest by Ted Snell; Into the Light – The Cruthers Collection of Women’s Art, UWA, 2012; In a Different Light – Australian Artists Working in Italy by Peter & Susan Ward; Out of the West – Western Australian Art 1830s to 1930s, by Anne Gray, NGA, 2011; Peintres Australiens a Etaples by Jean-Claude Lesage (in French); Scottish Painters in Australia, exhibition catalogue, Castlemaine Art Gallery, essays by Kirsten McKay and Peter Perry. Lists about 80 Australian artists born in Scotland; Painting The Rocks – The Loss of Old Sydney by Paul Ahton, et. Al., Historic Houses Trust, 2010; Fifty Years of Painting in Tasmania 1925-1975 by Don & Maggie Row. Biographical details provided on many of the 80 artists listed, Forty Degrees South, 2010.

 

Examples of publications on subjects depicted by Australian artists

 

Examples include Australian Artists, Australian Birds by Barry Pearce; Feather and Brush – Three Centuries of Australian Bird Art by Penny Olsen; Women of Flowers – Botanical Art in Australia from the 1830s to the 1960s by Leoni Norton, NLA, 2009; Visual Ephemera – Theatrical Art in Nineteenth-Century Australia by Anita Callaway; Pastures and pastimes – an exhibition of Australian Racing, Sporting and Animal Pictures of the 19th century, by Colin Laverty, Victorian Ministry for the Arts; White on Black – The Australian Aborigine Portrayed in Art by Geoffrey Dutton; Lesbian Art – An Encounter with Power by Elizabeth ashburn; Erotica – aspects of the erotic in Australian art by Cedric Flower; Refreshing – Art off the pub wall by Charles Pickett; Images of Religion in Australian Art by Rosemary Crumlin; Through Artists’ Eyes, Australian Suburbs and Their Cities 1919 – 1945 by John Slater. Artists’ Gardens – Flowers and Gardens in Australian Art 1780s – 1980s by Jennifer Phipps; A Fine Line – a history of Australian commercial art by Geoffrey Caban; Poster Art in Australia – The Streets as Art Galleries, Walls sometimes speak by Roger Butler; The Beach by Geoffrey Dutton; Dogs in Australian art, by Steven Miller, Wakefield Press, 2012; The Blake Book – Art, Religion and Spirituality in Australia by Rosemary Crumlin, Macmillan, 2011.

 

Non-Australian books which may include information on Australian art or artists

 

Benezit’s Dictionaire Des painters, Sculpteurs, Desssinateurs et Graveurs 8 vols, 1976, Thiemer Becker, 43 volumes reprinted in 1999 and The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner, 34 vols,Grove/Macmillan, 1996. (These are the standard European sources but are unlikely to provide original information on Australian artists).

 

Information may be found in dictionaries such as Bernard Dolman (ed), A Dictionary of Contemporary British Artists, 1929, and Who’s Who in Art, first published in 1927, twenty-second edition in 1986, and in the annual The Year’s Art, published in England from 1880 until the early 1940s, which has lists of artists, craft-workers, dealers, etc

Checklist of British Artists in the Witt Library, Courtauld Institute of Art, 1991,and A Checklist of painters c1200 – 1994 represented in the Witt Library, Courtald Institute of Art, London, Mansell/ Fitzroy Dearborn, Second Edition, 1995. (Lists over 60,000 artists who have reproductions of their work held in the Witt Library).

 

If trying to find information about Australian artists who exhibited in Britain the books of Algernon Graves are essential resources. They include: A Dictionary of Artists who have exhibited works in the Principal London Exhibitions from 1760 to 1893; The Royal Academy of Arts: a Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their work from its Foundation in 1769 to 1904, 8 vols., Society of Artists exhibitors, 1760-1791, The Free Society of Artists of Great Britain, 1761-1783 and The British Institution, 1806-1867: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and Their Work from the Foundation of the Institution #

 

See also The Royal Society of British Artists 1824 – 1893 and the New English Art Club 1888 – 1917, Antique Collectors’ Club, 1982 reprint. (Like the books of Graves, it lists exhibitors in alphabetical order with titles of works). And The Dictionary of British Artists 1880 – 1940, An Antique Collectors’ Club Research Project listing 41,000 artists, compiled by J. Johnson and A. Greutzner,Antique Collectors Club, 1976. (Perhaps the most useful of the above books because it covers the period when numerous Australian artists worked, and may have exhibited, in Britain. It provides exhibition dates but does not proved titles of works exhibited).