Art Books Published in Australia

The Art Book Publishing Industry in Australia

Anita Pisch

Ask any art historian,1 and they will tell you that it is quite difficult to get books published on art in Australia. Why this should be so in a nation that demonstrates increasing interest in and engagement with the arts is an interesting question, which generates both simple and complex answers. While it may be tempting to dismiss the issue as simply part of the broader challenges faced by the publishing industry as a whole, both in Australia and internationally, this would be to fail to recognise the distinct features and challenges of the art publishing industry as a niche market for a high-quality product which carries specific symbolic and cultural capital.2 In this paper I will briefly examine some of the key issues in contemporary Australian art book publishing, within both a historical and international context.

The analysis here of the issues in contemporary Australian art book publishing will be brief, abridged and, somewhat unavoidably, synoptic. The term ‘art’ is fairly narrowly defined and restricted to the visual arts,3 and will not include books on design, fashion or architecture,4 many of which share salient qualities with the art book and sometimes target the same audience.5 I will also exclude books as art (livres d'artistes, or artists books),6 zines, art magazines, almanacs, instruction manuals,7 colouring books, and art ephemera promoting small exhibitions (usually in commercial galleries).8

Art book publishing comprises only a tiny fraction of the publishing industry as a whole, and differs from other areas of the industry in several ways, including high publication costs, target audience,

1 I have done this informally on many occasions and, as an art historian who publishes in the field, I feel qualified to make this general statement. 2 Due to space limitations, these notions will not be discussed or elaborated here. Pierre Bourdieu’s The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, (edited and introduced by Randal Johnson, Columbia University Press, 1993) is the seminal text in this area and a good place to start an investigation into these concepts. 3 That is, not the performance arts or music 4 Design, fashion and architecture publications have a strong, built-in audience among professionals in these fields, many of who enjoy comparatively high incomes and for whom the purchase of work-related publications is a tax-deductible expense which can be comfortably met. 5 This is especially so today, as exhibitions in these fields occur increasingly in the major art galleries and museums. Andrew Bolton’s Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, a 2011 Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) publication to accompany the museum exhibition, was one of the best selling catalogues in history. Paola di Trocchio’s lavish catalogue for the NGVA’s current show, 200 Years of Australian Fashion, has already sold out.. Last year’s The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk catalogue at the NGV is almost impossible to find. 6 For an in-depth examination of artists books in Australia, see Sasha Grishin, ‘The anxious image: Printmaking and artists books in Melbourne 1999–2010,’ http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/view-discuss/sasha-grishin- printmaking-artists-books-melbourne and ‘Both a picture and a thousand words: the contemporary artists book,’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0uLuAC9s78 ; Helen Cole, ‘Public collections of artists’ books in Australia,’ The La Trobe Journal, No. 95, 2015, pp. 8-20. See also Robert Holden, Australian limited edition art books: 1973-1983, Paddington, Bloomfield Galleries, 1984 and Michael Richards, People, print & paper, Canberra, National Library of Australia, 1988. 7 Watercolour for Dummies, Oil Painting for Dummies and Manga for Dummies are even available as ebooks from Booktopia. See http://www.booktopia.com.au/ebooks/non-fiction/arts-entertainment/art-forms/cAF-p1- e.html 8 Although there are some blurred lines and crossover, each of the above are published and funded in different ways to the art book, and are characterised by their own distinctive histories and challenges. 2

layout and design, and suitability for digitisation. Where the art book is successful in Australia today, this frequently occurs when the publication of a book is linked to an exhibition at a major gallery or museum, and the book is available as merchandise at the exhibition venue. Art books essentially fall into two very broad categories: books on the history of art, theory of art, art movements or individual artists, and books that are published as art catalogues relating to specific exhibitions.

The first category includes art textbooks, scholarly and academic publications,9 books created for collectors, and monographs that are devoted to the oeuvre of a particular artist or group of artists.10 Generally speaking, art books are not expected to turn a profit, and their publication is usually subsidised in some way. This may be by virtue of a philanthropic bequest to the publishing house,11 through a grant or subsidy awarded to the author, or even by the featured artists agreeing to contribute to printing and production costs out of their own pocket. Authors are not usually paid and may, or may not, eventually see some financial return out of royalties, although this is often only in the unlikely scenario that the book gets to a second edition. Publishers may also release numbered special limited editions of art books, accompanied by original drawings and prints, personalised covers and slipcases or other limited edition paraphernalia, to attract collectors as buyers.12 The profit made on the limited edition helps subsidise the cost of the general print run.

Although art books are not particularly profitable, publishers may decide to publish an art title due to personal interest in the subject matter, because they feel that the work is in the public interest,

9 Although I include these in the category of art books under discussion here, I will not be examining these at length, as today they are a subset of academic publishing, often published by university e-presses, frequently available under open access, and sometimes with print-on-demand. As such, the primary aim is to facilitate global access to the proceeds of university higher research, without any expectation of profit to either the author or the publisher. Rewards may eventuate in other forms, such as satisfying the publishing criteria for university staff, enhancing the reputation of the scholar, the faculty and the university, and improving university rankings. 10 A few recent examples of art books published in Australia which fall into this category are John Olsen: An Artist’s Life by Darlene Bungey (2014 – Harper Collins); Modern Love: the Lives of John and Sunday Reed (2015 – Miegunyah Press) by Lesley Harding and Kendrah Morgan; Sasha Grishin's Australian Art: A History (2014 hardback, 2015 paperback – Miegunyah Press) and John Wolseley: Landmarks III (2015 - Thames & Hudson); and Patrick McCaughey’s Strange Country: Why Australian Painting Matters (2014 – Miegunyah Press). All of these books were published by trade publishers for a general audience (as opposed to university e-presses with an expectation of a primarily scholarly readership). 11 For example, Miegunyah Press is funded by the Russell and Mab Grimwade Miegunyah Press Fund. 12 In recent times, this is particularly true of exhibition catalogues from major galleries such as the NGV, which has a limited edition of Andy Warhol|Ai Weiwei for sale for $3000 featuring ‘a hand-applied silver-gilt edge … presented in a stunning hand-made silver foiled linen box which contains a specially produced print by Ai Weiwei’ (http://store.ngv.vic.gov.au/products/andy-warhol-ai-weiwei-limited-edition-catalogue ); as well as Two Hundred Years of Australian Fashion Limited Edition Art Book with silk scarf by Dion Lee for $750. Both of these publications accompany NGV exhibitions – the exhibition catalogue as an art book will be discussed below. Lou Klepac’s Beagle Press, based in Roseville, NSW, sells several limited editions, including books on artists such as Brett Whiteley (by Wendy Whiteley, 2014, $5500); Rick Amor (by Lou Klepac, 2013, $200); James Gleeson (by Lou Klepac, 1984, $1500; by Lou Klepac, 2013, $1100; and by Lou Klepac, Ken Wach, Renee Free and Bruce James, 2004, $1500 ); Bruno Leti (by Sasha Grishin, 2002, $440); Jeffrey Smart (by Barry Pearce, 2006, out of print); and Lloyd Rees (by Hendrik Kolenberg, 1986, $2000) (See http://www.beaglepress.com.au/limitededitions/index.cfm ). German publisher Taschen produces a large range of limited editions costing thousands of pounds including, for example, Ai Weiwei. Art edition of 100 copies for £10,000, many of which have sold out. The Taschen Ai WeiWei has been issued in another limited edition of 1000 copies for £900 (see https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/collectors_editions/all.htm?crt_page=1 ). 3

and/or because of the gains in cultural capital.13 Australian art publishing, more so than in Europe or the USA, has been dominated by individual maverick art publishers. If Sydney Ure Smith was a prominent presence between the 1920s and the 1940s, the scene from the 1970s onwards has been dominated by a number of strong individual personalities. These include Nevill Drury at Craftsman House, Jenny Zimmer at Macmillan Art Publishing, Lou Klepac at Beagle Press and the Grimwades and Miegunyah Press.

The first of the great Australian art publishing giants, Sydney Ure Smith (1887 – 1949) co-founded the advertising firm Julius & Smith in 1906, distinguished by its use of outstanding colour printing and artwork which employed some of Australia’s most notable artists.14 He had an early major success when he produced a catalogue to accompany the J.J. Hilder exhibition in 1916, with high- quality coloured reproductions of the artwork. This led to his decision to create the lavishly illustrated art periodical ‘Art in Australia’ (1916), with his rather ad hoc publishing enterprises somewhat formalised in 1920 with the formation of Art in Australia Ltd.15 Separating from the company completely by 1938, he had overseen the publication of seventeen Australian art books,16 and also co-published another ten Australian art books with other publishing houses. Between 1939 and 1949, now at the helm of Ure Smith Pty Ltd, he went on to publish another fifty books which, as Ure Smith biographer Nancy Underhill observes, set the canon of Australian art history.17 Underhill notes that if one focuses on Ure Smith’s projects individually, they appear as ‘a series of financial disasters,’ but his success lay in meshing together ‘many diverse skills and institutions’18 into the industry which is the basis of the contemporary art world.19 Much could be said about the intricacy and intrigue of Ure Smith’s publishing career,20 but perhaps the points most pertinent to the current discussion are that Ure Smith was responsible for the first major lavishly coloured exhibition catalogue on Australian soil,21 that his publishing activities in the field of visual arts did not generate

13 German publisher Taschen publishes affordable and beautiful art books which are largely subsidised by their pornography. See James Gardner, ‘Taschen Sells a Lifestyle Along With Books,’ The New York Sun, 15.01.2007, http://www.nysun.com/arts/taschen-sells-a-lifestyle-along-with-books/46692/ , Jessica Berens, ‘A Passion for Taschen,’ The Guardian, 04.11.2001, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/nov/04/art , James Cartwright, ‘Porno Publishing: Taschen’s sexy books editor tells us her remarkable story (NSFW),’ It’s nice that, 03.06.2015, http://www.itsnicethat.com/features/dian-hanson-a-life-in-porno-publishing-taschens-sexy- books-editor-tells-us-her-remarkable-story 14 For example, Lloyd Rees, John Passmore and Adrian Feint. 15 Art in Australia Ltd was co-founded with Charles Lloyd Jones, J.R. McGregor and Ernest Watt. Lloyd Jones was Chairman of David Jones from 1920 to 1958, and had trained at Julian Ashton’s in Sydney and the Slade School of Art in London. 16 In addition to six periodicals, and books on architecture, photography, design, poetry, embroidery and flower-arranging. 17 See Nancy D.H. Underhill, Making Australian Art 1916-49: Sydney Ure Smith Patron and Publisher. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1991, p. 172. 18 Ure Smith was intimately involved in the greater web of the art world, as President of the Society of Artists (1921 – 48), trustee, and later vice-president, of the Art Gallery of NSW (1927 – 47; 1943 – 47), member of the Advisory Committee for Applied Art (1925-31), trustee of the New South Wales government travelling scholarship, member of the Australian War Memorial art committee, and later in life, a broadcaster on television and radio. 19 Nancy D.H. Underhill, Making Australian Art 1916-49: Sydney Ure Smith Patron and Publisher. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1991, p. 179. 20 Ure Smith had a tendency to promote the work of his friends and upset many by his opposition to abstract art. 21 See Nancy D.H. Underhill, Making Australian Art 1916-49: Sydney Ure Smith Patron and Publisher. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1991, p. 42. 4

a profit for his publishing companies22 (production costs at Art in Australia Ltd were charged to David Jones in London and were not always reimbursed),23 and he produced several lavish collectors editions of art monographs in order to help subsidise his wider publishing operations.24

In a similar vein to Ure Smith’s subsidised publishing ventures, Nevill Drury’s (1947 – 2013) Crafstman House, and its sister company Fine Arts Press, also became reliant on the backing of a bigger firm to cover the production costs of its art titles. Craftsman’s Press was founded in 1981 by Nevill Drury,25 Judy Hungerford26 and Geoffrey King,27 ‘with the aim of producing high quality limited edition publications on Australian contemporary artists.’28 Drury, who had already worked as managing editor at Harper & Row (1976-79) and Doubleday (1980-81), produced several titles on notable Australian artists,29 before changing direction with a more mainstream art publishing venture, giving birth to Craftsman House in 1985. Gordon and Breach acquired Craftsman House in 1989, 30 with Drury remaining as publishing director until the end of 1999, and the company would become Australia’s major producer of titles on Australian art and artists,31 as well as European art32 and regional art in the USA, publishing over forty titles a year on arts and craft, photography, architecture, design and Western esoteric practices.33 Drury is on record as stating that about a

22 See especially See Nancy D.H. Underhill, Making Australian Art 1916-49: Sydney Ure Smith Patron and Publisher. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1991, pp. 155-164. 23 For example, Ure Smith wrote to Lloyd Jones in March 1918: ‘Your capital is very useful, though really we do not draw on it to any great extent, but it is nice to feel it is there if we want it.’ Then in September 1918: ‘We know that you are not worried about the question of whether any profit is derived or not, but we think it should be regarded as a purely business arrangement between us, and as you are doing a good deal of work now compared to the earlier numbers [of ‘Art in Australia’], it would probably be fairer if some amount were set aside for your services as we are doing here’, to which Lloyd Jones appended ‘Not yet.’ See Nancy D.H. Underhill, Making Australian Art 1916-49: Sydney Ure Smith Patron and Publisher. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1991, p. 136. After the sale of Art in Australia Lt due to Fairfax and Sons in 1934, Ure Smith stayed on as editor for another few years until Fairfax dismissed him, refusing to keep Ure Smith afloat. See Nancy D.H. Underhill, Making Australian Art 1916-49: Sydney Ure Smith Patron and Publisher. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1991, p. 166. 24 See Nancy D.H. Underhill, Making Australian Art 1916-49: Sydney Ure Smith Patron and Publisher. Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1991, p. 144. 25 Managing editor/publisher 26 Designer 27 Publisher 28 Nevill Drury, Australian Art: Inside Australian Art Publishing,’ http://www.nevilldrury.com/nevill-drury- lectures.htm 29 Including Justin O’Brien, Lloyd Rees and Charles Blackman. 30 Founded in 1961 by Martin Gordon, this international publishing company continues to produce titles at the forefront of academic research in both the sciences and the humanities. In addition to books and monographs, the company publishes more than 300 journals, reviews and audiovisual materials. At the time of its association with Craftsman House, it was a major international publisher of scientific journals. All production costs for Craftsman House titles were charged to Gordon and Breach offices (Interview with Sasha Grishin, 24.04.2016). 31 Craftsman House titles included the first major publications on Emily Kngwarreye, Gordon Bennett and Michael Jagamara Nelson, John Olsen, Margaret Olley, Tim Storrier, Colin Lanceley, Robert Juniper, Alun Leach- Jones, John Firth-Smith, John Wolseley, Wendy Stavrianos, William Robinson, Imants Tillers and Roy de Maistre. http://www.nevilldrury.com/nevill-drury-lectures.htm 32 Including books on New Zealand, Scottish, German, Russian, Polish, and Czech art. 33 This included the first scholarly monograph on an indigenous artist, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, by Dr Vivien Johnson. http://www.nevilldrury.com/nevill-drury-lectures.htm 5

quarter of the books he published were subsidised to the tune of between $12,000 and $25,000 dollars, in exchange for half the print run, which could be given away or sold.34

In 2001, with both Craftsman House and Fine Arts Press in serious financial difficulties, the administration manager Rhonda Fitzsimmons bought the companies for the token amount of $1, on the understanding that she would guide the companies back to solvency and return ownership to Australian hands.35 Re-badged as Fine Art Publishing, but still publishing books under the Craftsman House imprint, all contracts were transferred in the sale, with Fine Art Publishing becoming responsible for the payment of royalties. Fitzsimmons used the fact that the publishing contracts had been signed with Martin Gordon’s company, rather than Craftsman House, to avoid paying royalties on books which were still in print and selling, cancelled contracts for books which Craftsman House had undertaken to publish,36 and remaindered stock. Fine Art Publishing approached contracted authors to find $50,000 (and sometimes more) to subsidise publication, explaining that ‘As an independent wholly owned Australian company we have to be more commercial in our publishing decisions than was the case in the past. To maintain the quality, the majority of our small-print-run books now do require a subsidy.’37 In 2004, the pressmark was acquired by Thames & Hudson, which continued to publish the Craftsman House imprint until 2009.38

Since the 1980s, a number of small specialist art publishers39 and individual commercial galleries40 have been regularly publishing art books. These publications should not be confused with art catalogues, but often adopt a monographic character and run to a couple of hundred pages. Some mainstream international publishers with an Australian arm, including Thames & Hudson, Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press, have also maintained an art publishing profile here, although in general, under current protectionist policies for Australian publishing, they publish more titles on non-Australian artists than they do on Australian artists.

In general, art books which are not tied to an exhibition suffer from the lack of a precipitating ‘event’ and its attendant publicity, all of which is costed to the event, rather than the book itself; no ready-

34 Susan Wyndham, ‘The fine art of survival,’ Sydney Morning Herald, 01.05.2002, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/30/1019441367996.html 35 Susan Wyndham, ‘The fine art of survival,’ Sydney Morning Herald, 01.05.2002, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/30/1019441367996.html 36 Susan Wyndham, ‘The fine art of survival,’ Sydney Morning Herald, 01.05.2002, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/30/1019441367996.html 37 Susan Wyndham, ‘The fine art of survival,’ Sydney Morning Herald, 01.05.2002, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/04/30/1019441367996.html 38 Drury, along with a distinguished stable of Craftsman House authors and artists, had built an excellent reputation for the imprint. 39 Piper Press and The Beagle Press are particularly noteworthy for the quality and quantity of their output. Piper Press’s current list include monographs on Fiona Hall, Roy Jackson, Patricia Piccinini, Kathryn Del Barton, Gordon Bennett, Tim Maguire, Julie Rrap, Euan Macleod, William Robinson, Rosemary Laing, Fiona Foley, Brook Andrew, and titles on Aboriginal art and Chinese women artists in Australia. Beagle Press’s current list includes monographs on Brett Whiteley, Mark Tedeschi, Russell Drysdale, Margaret Olley, Jeffrey Smart, Robert Juniper, Horace Trenerry, Rick Amor, James Gleeson, Albert Tucker, John Coburn, Bruno Leti, William Robinson, Violet Teague, Peter Purves Smith, Judy Cassab, Lloyd Rees, Arthur Boyd and Nora Heysen. 40 These publications are generally devoted to artists in their stable and include Philip Bacon in Brisbane, Gene Sherman in Sydney, Charles Nodrum in Melbourne, and Australian Galleries in Melbourne and Sydney, plus a number of smaller players. 6

made venue from which to sell the book; and no vehicle for attracting outside sponsorship to help cover costs. These books face the following challenges:

 diminishing bricks-and-mortar venues in which to sell physical books;41  high production costs;  high prices for the end product (particularly when the consumer makes inevitable comparisons against the cost of other books);  a niche audience;  funding cuts across the arts in general, which diminish the likelihood of attracting a subsidy for publication;  high copyright and image permission costs, which must usually be borne by the author and can run into thousands of dollars;  diminishing in-house publishing staff, meaning that editing and design must be handed to freelancers, with costs often passed onto the author;  a downturn in the art market that sees the great majority of professional artists struggling to make a living42 and thus unable to find funds to contribute to the production costs of their own monographs.43

In the twenty-first century, most publications on art in Australia come from the publicly funded national and state collecting institutions, with the most proactive publishing programs at the NGV,44 NGA,45 AGSA,46 AGNSW47 and QAG.48 Many regional art galleries also have a rigorous art publishing profile. The art catalogue accounts for a large proportion of current art publishing in Australia, and despite striking similarities to scholarly art books, is distinguished by its relationship with the exhibition subject, the institutional authorship, and the catalogue’s role as exhibition merchandise.49 Additionally, particularly when it comes to blockbuster exhibitions, the catalogue provides avenues for corporate and other sponsorship, often by companies that gain significant cultural capital by associating their name with a high-class product and who will benefit from being viewed as philanthropically motivated. Between 1965 and 1985,50 exhibition catalogues51 in Australia suddenly

41 Major book fairs are increasingly becoming sales venues and a means of tying art books to ‘an event.’ The 2016 Melbourne Art Book Fair will be held at the National Gallery of Victoria from April 29 to May 1, with an accompanying symposium and list of ‘special events.’ See https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/whats-on/programs- events/art-book-fair/ 42 For example, in the 2007/8 financial year, sixty-four percent of professional visual artists in Australia earned less than $10,000 from their creative work, forty-nine percent earned less than $10,000 from all creative work, and twenty-four percent earned less than 10,000 from all work. See Throsby, David, and Anita Zednik. ‘Do you really expect to get paid?: an economic study of professional artists in Australia.’ 2010, p. 46. http://www.researchonline.mq.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/mq:11999 43 Or indeed to buy books on others. 44 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 45 National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 46 Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide 47 Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 48 Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane 49 James Thomas Berryman. ‘From Field to Fieldwork: the Exhibition Catalogue and Art History in Australia.’ ANU Digital Thesis, July 2005, p. 3. https://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/9528 50 Berryman sees the 1968 The Field exhibition at the NGV, widely acknowledged as a symbolic turning point in Australian art history, as the turning point also in exhibition catalogue design in this country. 51 James Berryman points out that there are three types of art catalogue: the exhibition catalogue, the collection catalogue and the catalogue raisonné. James Thomas Berryman. ‘From Field to Fieldwork: the 7

changed from being ephemeral brochures and pamphlets, to lengthy autonomous publications which were almost indistinguishable from art books.52 Jim Berryman ties the sudden massive expansion of the dimensions of the catalogue to the spread of academic art history in the universities in the 1960s and 1970s, and the subsequent rise of professionalism in the curatorial role.53 Along with increases in government funding to the arts which resulted in both increases in acquisitions and in other resources, a pool of funding became available to enable serious scholarship to be published for the benefit of the general public in lavishly illustrated, glossy-paged tomes,54 which were soon to become too heavy to seriously consider carrying through an exhibition.55

What distinguishes Australian art publishing from the rest of the world is the advent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art books. If in the 1970s this was a small trickle with a strong anthropological bent, by the twenty-first century it had grown into a major torrent, with hundreds of glossy art books produced devoted to various aspects of indigenous art.56 These books are some of the few Australian art publications to find an international market due to the wider global audience for indigenous art. This market is in the embryonic stages of a technological shift, with the Aboriginal Australia Art and Culture centre57 advertising three ebooks available for purchase through Paypal, each available in English, French and German.58

One of the major debates in the art publishing world today rages around the future of the art book, especially with regard to digital technology.59 To date, the art book has not sold well in digital

Exhibition Catalogue and Art History in Australia.’ ANU Digital Thesis, July 2005, p. 1. https://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/9528 . For the purposes of the present analysis, I will not draw distinctions between the three. 52 James Thomas Berryman. ‘From Field to Fieldwork: the Exhibition Catalogue and Art History in Australia.’ ANU Digital Thesis, July 2005, p. 1. https://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/9528 53 James Thomas Berryman. ‘From Field to Fieldwork: the Exhibition Catalogue and Art History in Australia.’ ANU Digital Thesis, July 2005, p. 5. https://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/9528 54 Berryman describes the catalogues as ‘the professional manifestation of the traditional art-historical monograph’. James Thomas Berryman. ‘From Field to Fieldwork: the Exhibition Catalogue and Art History in Australia.’ ANU Digital Thesis, July 2005, p. 7. https://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/9528 55 A further boon for the exhibition catalogue is that the publishers are not required to pay for permission to use the images. All of these factors, when added together, mean that the exhibition catalogue can be sold at a significantly lower retail price than other art books, especially those of equivalent size, weight and quality. This, in turn, impacts on customer expectations as to what is a ‘reasonable’ amount to pay for a good art book. 56 These include books on regional art centres, monographic studies on indigenous artists, and studies of different indigenous art forms, varying from bark painting, acrylics on canvas, batik and fabric weaving, Hermannsburg pottery, through to indigenous photography and new media arts. To name just a few examples from a very large field, Hetti Perkins, Art + Soul, Miegunyah Press, 2010; Colin Laverty and Elizabeth Laverty (eds), Beyond Sacred: Recent Paintings from Australia’s Remote Aboriginal Communities, 1st edn 2008, Hardie Grant, 2nd edn 2011, Kleimeyer; Jennifer Isaacs, Tiwi: Art, History, Culture, Miegunyah, 2012; Jennifer Isaacs, Hermannsburg Potters: Aranda Artists of Central Australia, Craftsman House, 2000; Hetti Perkins, Margaret K. Cameron West (eds), One Sun One Moon: Aboriginal Art in Australia, Art Gallery of NSW, 2007;Susan Cochrane, Story Place: Indigenous Art of Cape York and the Rainforest, Queensland Art Gallery, 2003. 57 A 100 per cent Aboriginal owned and operated business, based in Alice Springs and operating online. 58 Aboriginal Art and Culture, $15, http://aboriginalart.com.au/downloads/culture_books.html. ; Aboriginal Art of the Western Desert, $10 and Aboriginal Art & The Dreamtime, $10, http://aboriginalart.com.au/downloads/aboriginalart.html 59 For an in-depth panel discussion about the future of art book publishing in the US context on 12.02.2013, see ‘The Future of Art Book Publishing,’ http://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/future-art-book-publishing- margaret-chace-paul-chan-sharon-gallagher-chul-r-kim-arezoo-mo. Panel members are Margaret Chace, Associate Publisher, Skira-Rizzoli; Paul Chan, artist, Founder of Badlands Unlimited; Sharon Gallagher, 8

formats and the technology is seen as woefully inadequate to provide an experience analogous to that of the printed page. Digital resolution for images is poor, the electronic format has not thus far reproduced the experience of the page with its captions, side bars and marginalia and the ereaders and tablets do not sit well on coffee tables or shelves. However, on the international stage, concerted efforts are being made to devise a platform that may, if not re-create the printed matter experience, provide a new and somewhat unique experience.60 This envisaged future sees a place for both the digital artefact and the beautiful printed book, with digital technology providing an affordable and accessible means of gaining access to art across a wide and geographically dispersed audience. The two major barriers to this at the moment are inadequate technology and the cost of image reproduction, as digital permissions are often currently sold separately to printed rights, curtailing a publisher's ability to produce both digital and printed versions of a book.

While the major Australian art publishers have not rushed to provide digital art ebooks for sale,61 the availability of art ebooks as pdf downloads is flourishing in open access environments provided by universities and major libraries. The National Library of Australia has a large number of art ebooks that can be downloaded from its site,62 and both the NGV63 and the ANU have a small number of texts, which can be read online. With open access to digital theses, there are unprecedented opportunities to keep abreast of art scholarship, although frequently, in the latter case, the text is either not accompanied by images, or they are of vastly inferior quality to those on the printed page.

There may be no crisis in Australian art publishing, or perhaps more accurately, one could describe it as the ongoing crisis that has been a permanent fixture in this country. The audience is relatively small and production costs are hefty. Ebooks and ecatalogues have not made a major inroad in art publishing in this country for a number of reasons. The art book is seen as a luxury item with high production values and essential tactile properties. Despite the ongoing challenges, Australian publishers manage to produce a reasonable number of beautiful, high quality, scholarly art books each year, especially when considered on a per capita basis.

President and Publisher of ARTBOOK | D.A.P.; and Chul R. Kim, Associate Publisher, The Museum of Modern Art. The discussion is moderated by Arezoo Moseni Senior Art Librarian at The New York Public Library. 60 The Museum of Modern Art in New York released its first digital-only interactive publication, Picasso: The Making of Cubism 1912-1914, in 2014. For an interesting article discussing the ‘user-experience’, see Judith H. Dobrzynski, ‘The Future of Art Book Publishing is Here,’ Real Clear Arts, 07.08.2014, http://www.artsjournal.com/realcleararts/2014/08/the-future-of-art-book-publishing-is-here.html For details on the Mellon grant of $195,000 to Yale University Press to develop an appropriate digital technology for art books, see Jennifer Howard. ‘Art Publishers Look to Yale Press for Glimpse Into Their Digital Future,’ The Chronicle of Higher Education, 15.10.2012, http://blogs.lib.berkeley.edu/arthistory.php/art- publishers-look-to-yale. For access to the Metropolitan Museum, New York’s 457 open access art books, see http://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/titles-with-full-text-online?searchtype=F. These are simply scanned pdfs of existing print publications without interactive qualities and with generally poor image reproduction when compared with the printed book. 61 With the exception of the indigenous art books noted above 62 https://www.nla.gov.au/content/ebooks 63 https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/publications/ 9

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