Manuscripts : a miscellany of art and letters : no. 4. February 1933

Geelong, Vic. : at the Bookshop [H. Tatlock Miller, proprietor], 1934. Quarto, pictorial card wrappers designed by A.N. Baldwinson (a few light marks), 73 pp (edges with light foxing), illustrated.

Harry Tatlock Miller edited and published this important quarterly journal of Australian art and literature between 1931 and 1935. Lacking the resources to print illustrations in half-tone, the publisher pleaded with artists to send him their woodblocks and linocuts for printing directly into the magazine. No money was ever paid to any contributor. The magazines features original woodcuts and linocuts by artists such as Christian Waller, Napier Waller, Ethel Spowers, Eric Thake, Margaret Preston, Dorrit Black, etc. “How astonishing it was for great artists like Margaret Preston … and Dorrit Black and so many others … to send me their own blocks’. Roger Butler notes that it had a distribution of around 1,000 copies per issue. (BUTLER, Roger. Printed images by Australian Artists 1885 – 1955, p. 195).

This issue features a reproduction of a oil painting by Hans Heysen, and original woodcuts by Ethel Spowers and Margaret Preston (Translation from Picasso).

See: BUTLER, Roger. The prints of Margaret Preston, 2005 166 (p. 174).