Art in Australia. A Quarterly Magazine. Third Series, Number Forty-Seven. B.E. Minns Number

Edited by Sydney Ure Smith & Leon Gellert. Sydney : Art in Australia, 1932. Octavo, pictorial card wrappers, 70pp, illustrated with tipped-in colour plates, plus b/w plates, faint foxing to preliminaries, contemporary inscription to endpaper, else a fine copy. Features essay by Julian Ashton on the artist on the Future of the Theatre, and an article on the artist’s watercolours by J MacNally, among others as well as colour and black and white plates of works by Minns.

Art in Australia was conceived by Sydney Ure Smith as a flagship for Australian painting and graphic art, and has become the most important resource on Australian art in the first half of the twentieth century. Robert Holden writes ‘The magazine became a showcase of Australian printing ability and set new standards of advertising excellence …’ Artistic layout, quality graphic work in colour, an harmonious choice of typography and carefully worded text were all combined …’ (Cover Up, Sydney: 1995, p. 74).

For over a quarter of a century, and through its different formats, Art in Australia reviewed and discussed all aspects of Australian art exhibited in both commercial public galleries. Its longevity as a journal was due to its modern approach to design, with many covers being icons of art deco style in themselves