THE NEW AUSTRALIAN BOOKPLATE SOCIETY collectors, bibliophiles, artists and others dedicated to promoting bookplates Newsletter No. 38, September 2015 Editor/President Characters in Australian bookplate history: John Gartner and Dr Mark Ferson the Australian Bookplate Club 4 Sofala Ave By Mark J Ferson, Sydney Riverview NSW 2066 02 9428 2863 [email protected] The Australian Ex Libris Society had been time at the Melbourne Public Library where he Secretary established with much fanfare in 1923 through was guided by assistant librarian A B Foxcroft Bronwyn Vost the society connections of founding president to the work of the private presses. He began to [email protected] John Lane Mullins and a group of other correspond with the leaders of the craft and in Designer passionare collectors and promoters, with P 1933 came into contact with Ben Fryer who Mary Keep Neville Barnett in the vanguard. The Society influenced him to found the Victorian Division PO Box 555 survived the Great Depression and gained a of the Printing Industry Craftsmen of Australia. Dulwich Hill NSW 2203 [email protected] high membership in the mid-1930s, including a Gartner established the Hawthorn Press in sizeable Melbourne contingent led by Victorian 1937 which functioned solely as a private press vice president Robert Henderson Croll. By the until 1945, when he took over a commercial end of 1939, despite the demise of the Australian printing business. Around 1936 he had become Ex Libris Society following the death of Lane interested in bookplates, probably through Mullins, the Victorian branch had managed contact with fellow-printer V S Hewett, who was to maintain its membership at the same level the production manager at the Specialty Press, as five years earlier. Croll’s ‘fascinating pursuit’ Melbourne, and a member of the Australian continued to motivate Melbourne collectors, and Ex Libris Society for the previous four years. on 25 November 1941 a meeting was called by The same year, Gartner designed a typographic ‘organiser’ John Gartner to form the Australian bookplate for himself, and began corresponding Bookplate Club. Officers were elected, with Calligraphic design by Croll as president, Gartner as secretary-treasurer Audrey Hutchinson and V S Hewett as vice-president, as well as (England), for J Gartner, 1983 an assistant secretary and a small committee. The constitution, which replicated that of the Australian Ex Libris Society devised 18 CONTENTS years earlier, specified the objects of the new society as being the promotion of bookplate Characters in Australian bookplate history: John use and exchanges, the involvement of artists, Gartner and the Australian the holding of exhibitions and publication Bookplate Club 1 of literature on the subject. After six months, Have bookplate will travel: the club had 23 Victorian members, of whom Gretta G Rowell, Louis M 13 had belonged to the Australian Ex Libris Dillman and Lord de Tabley’s A guide to the study of Society, and in addition eight New South Wales, book-plates 3 five South Australian and three United States Bookplates as social history: members. The Courier-Mail and Apart from Croll, the driving force behind The Sunday Mail Sand the formation and activities of the club was Gardens Competition 4 Melbourne printer John Gartner (1914-1998). Notes and happenings 6 He undertook training in printing at the Wood-engraving by A Feint for 6 Editorial Melbourne Technical College and also spent J Gartner, 1941 www.bookplatesociety.org.au/ ISSN 1833-766X ISSN and exchanging with Barnett, Croll, Eric Thake, Adrian Feint and other Sydney collectors. When I interviewed Gartner’s widow, Zelma, in 2000, she described her late husband as ‘a people person’ and recalled that he had been a collector all his life, especially of anything to do with printing, and was also most interested in Australian art and with the technique of wood engraving. The latter interest led to Gartner approaching Adrian Feint in 1939 to design Gartner’s first pictorial bookplate, after which they struck up a close friendship. The next year Gartner wrote, and published at the Hawthorn Press, a booklet outlining Feint’s bookplate work, and in 1941 he wrote ‘Adrian Feint’s bookplates’ for Ure Smith’s Australia National Journal which he reprinted at the Hawthorn Press in a limited edition of 200 copies. Feint visited Gartner Wood-engraving bookplate by Allan Jordan for J Gartner, 1944 on many occasions during the war years and from 1942 he was engaged to produce decorations for a number of Hawthorn artist Eric Thake and a second published letter from the beginning of 1943 from Press books, beginning with its printer’s under the Australian Bookplate Club aegis collector Sydney Blake to Jane Windeyer, device. Gartner also utilised the services of was devoted to Eirene Mort. Between these in which he expresses the same sentiments: Melbourne teacher and commercial artist two booklets, Gartner published under Right up to the time of the War, I was Allan Jordan (1898-1982), whose wood his own name a checklist of the designs interested in the collection of continental engraved illustrations and other decorations of Victorian etcher William Hunter. All bookplates and was corresponding with enhance more than a dozen Hawthorn Press comprised a preface, checklist and 5-7 a number of European artists. Since books from the 1940s. Jordan executed tipped-in, original bookplates and they the outbreak of war however I have a series of wood-engraved bookplates were raffled or sold to club members or completely given up all thoughts of between 1939 and 1958, including designs others interested in bookplates. Gartner collecting bookplates, books, and the for Gartner dated 1944 and 1950. Gartner’s considered these illustrated checklists an graphic arts all of which interested me. other bookplates from this period by innovation in Australia, although the first Melbourne artists comprised designs by W of these works had in fact been produced in An alternate or additional reason is the Hunter (1943), C H Crampton (1944) and respect of the bookplates of Adrian Feint by illness and death of Victorian figurehead R Thake (1944). the artist himself in 1928. H Croll, and this is certainly the opinion With the founding of the Australian The idea and format of the two of club member and veteran bookplate Bookplate Club, Gartner marshalled his Hawthorn Press checklists were taken up designer Eirene Mort, who noted in organisational abilities in the direction of by Adelaide collector and Club member December 1947 in a letter to fellow artist- strengthening the club’s membership and Harry Muir who published checklists of the collector Ella Dwyer, after Croll’s death: its activities, and utilised his typographic bookplates of Norman Lindsay and George The Bookplate Club seems to have faded abilities and the Hawthorn Press to the Perrottet at his Wakefield Press in 1942 and out. It went into recess during Mr Croll’s benefit of the club’s bright if brief publication 1944. Despite the apparently successful long illness, & though they hoped to start program. Following the Constitution and list beginnings of the Club marked by its talks again with renewed vigour, I wonder of foundation members, he edited two issues to members, publications and an increase whether they will. I always liked that Club of the club newsletter, dated April 1943 in new bookplate designs in 1942-1944, it – it was so friendly and enterprising … (with a tipped-in Feint bookplate) and does not appear to have survived beyond May 1944. The more important Hawthorn 1944. In retrospect, both John and Zelma Despite the cessation of organised Press publications were the checklists of the Gartner felt that the war killed off interest bookplate collecting activities in Australia bookplates of prominent artist-members. in bookplates. This view is supported by with the fading away of the Australian The first of these concerned Melbourne contemporary evidence, in the form of a Bookplate Club, Gartner continued to 2 commission and swap bookplates, and plates (ex-libris). Published by John Pearson, John Byrne Leicester Warren (1835-95) turned towards Europe as a source of book- London, in 1880, this was the first English who became third and last Lord de Tabley, plate designers, but that is another story. book on bookplate collecting, coming just and was a gentleman of strong friendships before (and perhaps stimulating) the great and broad interests including as a poet, an References are available from the author. fashion for bookplate collecting which observer of natural history, and a collector erupted with the formation in 1891 of the of coins and books. It is perhaps worth Have bookplate will travel: London-based Bookplate Society. quoting one of those friends, Edmund Gretta G Rowell, Louis M The presence inside the book’s front Gosse: cover of a nautical bookplate - one of Dillman and Lord de Tabley’s His love of books extended to a study my bookplate collecting themes - sealed A guide to the study of of those marks of ownership which are the deal and US $95 changed hands. The book-plates known as ex-libris, and in 1880 he bookplate is a pen and ink design of a By Mark J Ferson, Sydney published A guide to the study of book- fully-rigged sailing ship by prize-winning plates, a handsomely illustrated volume cartoonist C K Berryman with text ‘Gretta In conscientious preparation for my wife’s which has been the pioneer of many G Rowell, Oct. 1925’. I have been unable and my holiday to North America last interesting works, and of a whole society to find out anything substantial about the September, I sought advice from some of students and annotators. He was led to owner except that in 1930 she was residing Sydney book collectors regarding good the historical study of bookplates by his with her husband and adult children in secondhand bookshops in Los Angeles, love of heraldry … (Gosse, Critical kit- Pasadena, and had a further bookplate our point of arrival where we were to stay kats, London, 1896; p.