Title

Lino-cut artist's unusual sucess. [Ethleen Palmer]

Author

Sydney Morning Herald.

Source

Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney) 18 April 1831 - ongoing

Details

Supplement, 30 August 1938, page 6, columns 1-4.

Publication date

30 August 1938

Physical description

illustrations 3, black and white

Type

News

Language

English

Country of context

Australia

Full text

LINO-CUT ARTIST'S UNUSUAL SUCCESS
Fascination of the Colour Print

GOOD fortune, also, sometimes comes in battalions – although Mr. Shakespeare did not mention that! For Ethleen M. Palmer, Australia's leading lino-cut artist, the year 1938 will always be a memorable one. So much so that fairy fingers must have traced the word "Success" in shining letters of gold upon her horoscope.

SO far, this year, Miss Palmer has been appointed to the art department of the Technical Col- lege as lecturer-demonstrator in lino-cut colour printing; won the 150th Anniversary art com- petition (lino-cut section); won an art com- petition held by the Royal South Australian Society of Arts; had examples of her work acquired by the Adelaide Art Gallery and the Brisbane Art Gallery.

Last month the National Art Gallery in Sydney made the fourth Australian State to recognise the quality and art of her lino-cuts. For the lino-cut is an art when handled with the verve, originality, and distinction shown by this brilliant young Sydney artist, who is one more scholarship winner (trained at the Technical College) to win through.

The continued success of ex-students lends weight to the opinion former by Dr. F. P. Keppel, now president of the Carnegie Corporation, in his report: "In both Dominions (New Zealand and Australia) the best work in the fine arts that I saw was being done in the Technical Colleges”.

ROMANTICALLY as it reads, Miss Palmer's success did not "just happen'' - It is the fruit of years of hard work - even drudgery - and that infinite capacity for taking pains which some label "genius."

Let the artist speak for herself:-"To many .artists the medium of the lino-cut is unbelievably irksome, necessitating as it does many hours of patient labour ... yet if any impatience is felt, and the effort to attain perfection in craftsmanship is slackened, an otherwise successful set of blocks is liable to be completely spoilt.

"It is a simple process, technically speaking, and therein lies one of its greatest dangers, because it can be mastered by those who are incapable of appreciating and expressing the real essentials of a true colour print. "Still passing through the experimental stage, the lino-cut, although related to the wood-cut, re- quires a greater simplification of forms and details, and needs a vast fund of patience, concentration, accuracy, and craftsmanship."

PRACTICALLY self-taught in this medium, Miss Palmer has studied the dozen or more distinct media which have been accepted in visual art alone as the orthodox expression of human thoughts and emotions.

Her first "picture" was a tiny blue wren just two inches square, made on a frame, with "tools" composed of a "gouger" adapted from an old umbrella rib!

"It was all out of register and very badly cut smiles the artist, recalling that first little effort. But with all its faults it was exciting enough to stimulate an ambition to go forward and conquer a highly difficult medium. As hand and eye became more skilled, still more complex problems arose, to be in turn conquered too.

HERE is Miss Palmer's summing up: - "The ultimate goal of the colour print must be an abstraction or a quintessence. Western art generally, until quite recently, has sought to imitate Nature, but realism in colour printing can only lead to failure. On the other hand, mere abstraction will leave the spectator quite cold, or, at best, mentally intrigued, but it will not touch his emotions, neither can he identify himself with the artist."

[Captions to the 3 illustrations]

Above is Autumn: A lovely landscape which expresses this season of the year with an originality and feeling rarely seen in the medium of lino-cut, It recently won the prize in a competition held by the Royal South Australian Society of Arts in Adelaide, and the Art Gallery there now has three examples of this artist's work.

And (at right) Granite Peaks, Mount Kembla, Wollongong : Chosen by the trustees of the National Art Gallery as illustrating Miss Palmer's colourful style.

Hornbills : What appears to be a "family row" shows Miss Palmer's dramatic style in depicting bird life, which, afer all, seems remarkably "human"' !

[Sydney Morning Herald, Supplement, 30 August 1938, p.6, col.1-4.]
 

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Last Updated

12 Jan 2022