The 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition

A$7,500 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

The 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition. At Buxton’s Rooms opened 17 August 1889. [Melbourne: Fergusson and Mitchell, 1889]. Engraving from original zinc plate measuring 140 x 83 mm (image) printed in black ink on laid paper measuring 245 x 150 mm. A proof impression of the front cover of the exhibition catalogue, designed by Charles Conder and signed in the image. This popular exhibition launched a new and powerful Australian art movement that has come to visually represent the formative period of national history around the time of federation. National Museum of Australia website https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/9-by-5-exhibition The 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition stands as Australia’s most enduringly significant art exhibition: the small oils on cigar box lids and cardboard broke with painterly convention and marked the first serious move into art nouveau. The core exhibitors Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Charles Conder stand as the founders of Australian Impressionism. They were aged 33, 22 and 20 respectively. At this young age Conder was given the task of designing the catalogue’s cover, which is critically described by Rothenstein: ‘Compared with his later drawings it is as a lanky schoolgirl to a mellow matron. The forms, soon to grow rounded, are angular and thin, and the line, which has not yet assumed its final indefinite yet expressive character, is scratchy. The decoration shows little capacity for design, and although the occasion called for a propaga

• Binding: Hardcover

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