Art in Australia

Art in Australia, was first issued in 1916. It was edited by Sydney Ure Smith, graphic artist and director of the advertising agency, Smith and Julius;{{Cite web |title=Sydney Ure Smith, b. 1887 |url=http://www.portrait.gov.au/people/sydney-ure-smith-1887/ |access-date=2022-09-30 |website=National Portrait Gallery people}}{{Citation |last=Underhill |first=Nancy D. H. |title=Smith, Sydney George Ure (1887–1949) |url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/smith-sydney-george-ure-8485 |work=Australian Dictionary of Biography |place=Canberra |publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University |language=en |access-date=2022-09-30}} Bert Stevens, who remained editor of The Lone Hand;{{Citation |last=Stewart |first=Ken |title=Stevens, Bertram William (Bert) (1872–1922) |url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/stevens-bertram-william-bert-8651 |work=Australian Dictionary of Biography |place=Canberra |publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University |language=en |access-date=2022-09-30}} and Charles Lloyd Jones, of the David Jones emporium family;{{Citation |last=Thompson |first=Ruth |title=Jones, Sir Charles Lloyd (1878–1958) |url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/jones-sir-charles-lloyd-6869 |work=Australian Dictionary of Biography |place=Canberra |publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University |language=en |access-date=2022-09-30}} and was published by Angus & Robertson in 1917–1918; Art in Australia Ltd in the years 1918–1934; and in its final decade (1934–1942) was published by the Sydney Morning Herald.{{Citation|author1=Smith, Sydney Ure |title=Art in Australia|publication-date=1916|publisher=S. U. Smith, B. Stevens and C. L. Jones|url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/18109818 | accessdate=6 June 2012 }} From 1922 Leon Gellert took over editorship from Stevens and Jones, continuing in the position with Ure Smith until both retired in 1938.

Production standards were exacting and the editors oversaw photography of art and its printed reproduction to the highest quality available. In the first series{{snd}}a deluxe edition, limited to 40 copies, with 30 for sale{{snd}}each contained an engraver's proof print (a reproduction) signed by the artist.{{Cite book |url=https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1381314 |title=Art in Australia |date=1916 |publisher=S. U. Smith, B. Stevens and C. L. Jones |location=Sydney, N.S.W}}

Publication was semi-annual 1916–1920, quarterly 1921–1930, bimonthly 1930–1933,{{cite news|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70308986 |title=Art in Australia |newspaper=The Central Queensland Herald|location=Rockhampton, Qld.|date=22 December 1932 |accessdate=6 June 2012|page=25|via=National Library of Australia}} and back to quarterly 1934–1942.{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article58765228|title=Art in Australia|newspaper=The Sunday Times|location=Perth|date=21 June 1936|accessdate=6 June 2012 |page=27 |via=National Library of Australia}}

It came out in four series:{{Cite web |last=Austlit |title=Art in Australia {{!}} AustLit: Discover Australian Stories |url=https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C277211 |access-date=2022-10-01 |website=www.austlit.edu.au |language=en}}

• No.1. 1916 – No.11. 1921
• New Series Vol.1. No.1. (February 1922) – Vol.1. No.2 (May 1922)
• Third Series No.1. (August 1922) – No.81 (November 1940)
• Series 4, No.1. (March 1941) – No.6 (June 1942)

• 1916–1938 Sydney Ure Smith
• 1916–1922 Bertram Stevens
• 1916–1921 Charles Lloyd Jones
• 1922–1938 Leon Gellert{{Citation |last=Souter |first=Gavin |title=Gellert, Leon Maxwell (1892–1977) |url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gellert-leon-maxwell-10288 |work=Australian Dictionary of Biography |place=Canberra |publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University |language=en |access-date=2022-10-01}}
• 1938–1940 Kenneth Wilkinson
• 1941–1942 Peter Bellew

Incorporated in 1921, the Art in Australia company published several other magazines, including Australia: National Journal and The Home, which often balanced any shortfall by Art in Australia, which was expensive to produce, often depending on funds from Jones; and also costly to purchase, with a newsstand price of seven shillings and sixpence (1919); 12 shillings and sixpence (1920, 1927–1929); six shillings (a value of nearly A$22 in 2021) in 1921–1922; three shillings and sixpence (1930–1934); and five shillings (1934–1942), the latter equivalent to A$19 in 2021. Few artists were able to afford it. Fairfax Press purchased The Home in 1934.

File:Art in Australia Nov 1922 contents details.jpg

Trained in art by Julian Ashton, and favouring members of the Society of Artists, Sydney, Ure Smith was a keen proponent of Australian art and to some extent its early modernists, though he was not sympathetic to abstraction, and his attitudes were influential on the content of Art in Australia, which sprang from his success in publishing the popular, high-quality photo-engravings by Hartland & Hyde in the J. J. Hilder Watercolourist exhibition catalogue in 1916. Fine illustrations continued to be a profuse and celebrated feature of the magazine. While his friends the Lindsays and Hans Heysen were conservative, Ure Smith encouraged progress in Australian art, supported the Contemporary Group in Sydney, the Melbourne Herald Exhibition of French and British Contemporary Art (1939) and imported works by Henri Matisse and André Derain for Society of Artists exhibitions. Basil Burdett, who in 1925 established Macquarie Galleries at 19 Bligh Street Sydney, was a frequent contributor and associate editor of the magazine in the mid-to-late 1920s.

Some editions of Art in Australia were specifically devoted to individual artists,{{Cite book |last=Allen |first=Christopher |title=A companion to Australian art |publisher=John Wiley & Sons|year=2021 |isbn=978-1-118-76795-5 |edition=2nd |pages=20, 44, 50, 292, 312–3 |language=en}} or had lengthy articles on featured artists.{{cite news |date=4 September 1930 |title=Art in Australia |page=3 |newspaper=The Central Queensland Herald |location=Rockhampton, Qld. |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70275866 |accessdate=6 June 2012 |via=National Library of Australia}}{{cite news |date=28 June 1932 |title=Art in Australia |page=5 |newspaper=The Mercury|location=Hobart, Tasmania |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article29961166 |accessdate=6 June 2012 |via=National Library of Australia}} In addition, content was enhanced with the work of designers and illustrators, including Douglas Annand who drew for Sydney Ure Smith's publications, the Home, Art in Australia and the Australian National Journal between 1935 and 1939.{{Citation |last=MacAulay |first=Bettina |title=Annand, Douglas Shenton (1903–1976) |url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/annand-douglas-shenton-9369 |work=Australian Dictionary of Biography |place=Canberra |publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University |language=en |access-date=2022-10-01}}

Though devoted solely to the visual arts, a literary supplement to Art in Australia was proposed in 1917 and prepared during 1918, but was abandoned despite pressure from Norman Lindsay.{{Cite book |last=Mendelssohn |first=Joanna |title=Lionel Lindsay: An Artist and His Family |publisher=Chatto & Windus |year=1988 |location=United Kingdom}} The magazine did published some poetry and fiction during the 1920s including that of Lindsay, who promoted his conservative views, and of his son, Jack, Kenneth Slessor and Hugh McCrae, and each had individual numbers devoted to their works,{{Cite journal |last=Lindsay |first=Norman |date=1930 |title=Norman Lindsay number |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/216902791 |journal=Art in Australia |publisher= |oclc=216902791}} while other contributors included Zora Cross, Dorothea Mackellar, Furnley Maurice, and Dowell O'Reilly. In 1924 Art in Australia held a short story competition, won by Katharine Susannah Prichard's The Grey Horse and though she contributed more, from the 1930s literary works were reserved for the companion magazine, The Home, a more regular publisher of prose and poetry in the Art in Australia group.

Retired in 1938, Ure Smith and Gellert were replaced by Kenneth Wilkinson and Peter Bellew was appointed in 1941 for the magazine's last eighteen months. These later editors were more sympathetic toward modernist art and they published poetry, including that of Max Harris and Alister Kershaw.

Art in Australia folded in August 1942.

Art in Australia was succeeded eleven years later by Art & Australia published quarterly by Sydney Ure Smith's son Sam from May 1963. It follows the high standard of reproduction of its forerunner and is still in print.

• Australian Art: a Monthly Magazine & Journal

{{Reflist}}

• [https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-325167134 Online copies of Art in Australia at the National Library of Australia]
• {{librivox book | title=Art in Australia| author=Various}} (various editions)

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Art in Australia}}

Category:Angus & Robertson books

Category:Arts magazines published in Australia

Category:Biannual magazines published in Australia

Category:Bi-monthly magazines published in Australia

Category:Defunct magazines published in Australia

Category:Magazines established in 1916

Category:Magazines disestablished in 1942

Category:Quarterly magazines published in Australia

Category:Magazines published in Sydney

Category:Art criticism