Night fall in the ti-tree

Geraldine Rede and Violet Teague (born Melbourne) met at the National Gallery School in the late 1890s. Their book is the earliest known example of colour relief printing in Australia, and a very early example of the influence of Japanese woodblock techniques on Australian printmaking.

Teague studied painting in Brussels from 1890-93 at the Atelier Blanc-Garin, and experimented with printmaking at Hubert Herkomer's school in England, which she attended in 1894. She returned to Australia in 1895. 'Night fall in the ti-tree' is a story about rabbits, set in the Australian bush. The Japanese influence on it is obvious, especially in printing and format, similar to Japanese children's crepe-books of the 1890s, and is reinforced by the design of the book, where the images lead from one page to the next, like a frieze. An early version of the book was hand-printed by Teague in Melbourne in 1905; another edition for the English market was published in London by Elkin Mathews in 1906. The book was exhibited in the 1905 Victorian Artists Society Exhibition, Melbourne and the Federal Art Exhibition in the same year. In 1907 it won an award at the First Australian Exhibition of Women's Work, Melbourne.

Hendrik Kolenberg and Anne Ryan, Australian prints from the Gallery's collection, AGNSW, 1998