Along the track

Lesbia Thorpe was an illustrator, painter, teacher and prolific printmaker. Originally trained by Dattilo Rubbo and a member of the Painter Etchers Society in Sydney, she later went to London in 1953, studying printmaking with Gertrude Hermes at the Central School of Art & Design. On her return to Australia later in the 1950s, Thorpe was among a very small number of active printmakers in Australia, contributing to the printmaking revival that was set to explode in the 1960s and 70s.
This image of vernacular architecture in a landscape setting reflects similar imagery found in prints of this period from the US, Canada and Britain, but with a distinctively Australian accent. While it reflects the work of the artist’s international contemporaries, it also builds upon the legacy of colour linocut prints which first flourished in Australia in the inter-war years, and reflects a nostalgic vision of Australian life centered on the bush.