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Details
- Date
- 1919
- Media category
- Materials used
- etching, printed in warm black ink with plate tone on ivory laid paper
- Edition
- No. 1 from unknown edition
- Dimensions
- 29.8 x 11.1 cm platemark; 35.7 x 16.3 cm sheet
- Signature & date
Signed l.r., pencil ".../ John Shirlow".
Signed and dated within plate to print u.l., "SHIRLOW/ 1919.".- Credit
- Gift of Sir Kenneth Street 1962
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- DA68.1962
- Copyright
- Artist information
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John Shirlow
Works in the collection
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About
John Shirlow was one of the first artists to make a career in Australia based on etching, and influenced many of his contemporaries, including Lionel Lindsay, to etch. He taught himself from 'PG Hamerton's book Etching and etchers' (1868) after seeing prints by James McNeill Whistler, Seymour Hayden and Charles Meryon in the National Gallery of Victoria, proceeding to construct his own etching tools and press to make his first etching in 1895.
Shirlow worked from life, drawing directly on the plate, and his principal subjects included landscapes, architecture and street scenes, predominantly of Melbourne, although he did publish a portfolio of six etchings, 'The Sydney set', in 1917. Shirlow was an active and senior figure in the Melbourne art world, promoting etching assiduously through teaching, writing and lectures. He was a foundation member of the Australian Painter-Etchers' Society, serving as its first Vice-President and exhibiting seventeen etchings in its inaugural exhibition in 1921.
from Anne Ryan, 'Australian etchings and engravings 1880s–1930s from the Gallery's collection', AGNSW, Sydney 2007
