Julian Ashton
(England, Australia 27 Jan 1851–27 Apr 1942)
- Title
- Gloucester Street, The Rocks, Sydney
- Media category
- Materials used
- etching, black ink with pale plate tone on ivory laid paper
- Edition
- 6/14
- Dimensions
-
30.2 x 19.9cm platemark; 34.0 x 22.5cm sheet
- Signature & date
- Signed within plate to print l.r. "J R ASHTON". Signed l.r., pencil "Julian Ashton.". Not dated.
- Credit
- Purchased 1918
- Accession number
- 3319
- Location
- Not on display
- Further information
This etching of street life in the Rocks come from a second edition of fourteen, which Ashton published in 1918, printed in a blue/black ink, rather than the original sepia colour of 1893.
The Gallery acquired the print that year from Angus and Robertson, a firm of booksellers and publishers in Castlereagh Street. Despite the plate having been etched some twenty-five years earlier, its reissue for a new market indicates the popularity of the subject, as Sydney, especially the Rocks, underwent widespread slum clearances following outbreaks of bubonic plague in the first decades of the century. Nostalgia grew for a Sydney of the past, and artists including Lionel Lindsay and Sydney Ure Smith produced prints of 'old Sydney' well into 1910s, 20s and even 30s.
from Anne Ryan, 'Australian etchings and engravings 1880s–1930s from the Gallery's collection', AGNSW, Sydney 2007
- Bibliography (2)
-
Anne Ryan (Australia) (Author), Australian etchings and engravings 1880s–1930s from the Gallery's collection, Domain, 2007, 20 (colour illus.). cat.no. 25
Kay Vernon (Author), Harbour hymns, city songs: visions of Sydney from the collection, Sydney, 1990. cat.no. 2
- Exhibition history (1)
-
Harbour hymns, city songs: visions of Sydney from the collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 13 Jan 1990–11 Mar 1990.
