Title

Strong Shirlow's hand.

Author

Author not identified

Source

Argus (Melbourne).

Details

19 December 1933, page 8, column 5.

Publication date

19 December 1933

Type

News

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Full text

STRONG SHIRLOW'S HAND
A PIONEER ETCHER

Whatever may be said against the weather-stained and battered plaster statues which people the Fitzroy Gardens one thing at least they may count as a virtue - they gave Victoria's pioneer etcher his first lessons in art In the late 'eighties. John Slnrlow who had left Scotch College and the guiding hand of the late Di Morrison to become a printer began to haunt theFitzroy Gardens with a notebook employing the plaster casts as models for drawings. These he submitted to Senhor Loureiro whose pupil he became as a preliminary to study at the National Gallery under Frederick McCubbin.

Water-colour, oils, and woodcarvlng - he followed them all, only to give his heart at last to a Dark Lady of more mysterious habit. Shirlow was still a student at the gallery when he came under the spell of Whistler. A devotee of the city scene, the changing skjllne and the towering spire, Shirlow realised that etching was his medium.

Shirlow made his own press from red- gum, according to instructions given by Hamerton in "Etching and Etchers". It is probably still In existence somewhere in Melbourne. It was followed by another press, also home-made, the etcher making his own patterns and turning and fitting all the parts himself. He manufactured his own tools, and prepared his own etching grounds and varnishes, and tested inks and papers. For the pictures he used the backs of old copper plates.

John Shirlow was not the first in Victoria to try to etch - Tom Roberts and others had experimented with acid - but he was the first to succeed and to make etching his metier. His first etching, a plate of Scots Church, Melbourne, seen from Lonsdale street, was made in 1895;  it was probably not until about 1910 that the finished etcher emerged.It was then that he produced his widely known study of Flinders street raliway station. Recognition came slowly, but surely. After many vicissitudes, Shirlow is now a trustee of the National Gallery, which 10 years ago did not contain a single example of his work, and his name is celebrated by the Australian poet O'Dowd, who looks forward to the day when

"Strong Shirlow's hand shall trace
Mantegna's line"

Last week Mr Shirlow celebrated his 64th birthday. On Saturday he was given a presentation by the etching class at the Melbourne Technica College, the only class of its kind in Australia, which he has conducted for six years. Mr Shirlow has long been a member of the choir of St Paul's Cathedral.

[Argus (Melbourne), 19 December 1933, p.8, col.5.]

 

 

Last Updated

25 Oct 2023