Writings of the wall

Elizabeth Rooney was a major figure in the revival of printmaking in Sydney in the post-war period. Born in Sydney, she studied painting and drawing at East Sydney Technical College in the late 1940s, and towards the end of her studies began making etchings under the influence of one of her teachers, Herbert Gallop. She soon discovered that prints were her metier.

Unable to travel or study abroad and with printmaking in a moribund state locally, she was forced to teach herself how to make prints using the books of British printmaker S W Hayter (1901-88). Through discussions with other artists - her first etching press was given to her in 1954 by Bim Hilder - and experimentation with techniques and materials, she was to produce a distinctive oeuvre of over 400 etchings spanning more than five decades.

A key protagonist in the contemporary printmaking revival that occurred in Sydney in the early 1960s, she was a foundation member of the Sydney Printmakers group that included Henry Salkauskas, Earle Backen and Eva Kubbos, and a regular exhibitor with the Contemporary Art Society. Her work was included in the important ‘First Australia-wide graphic art exhibition’, an event that marked the beginning of the 1960s print revival in Australia. In 1961 she was co-founder with Joy Ewart, of the Workshop Arts Centre, Willoughby, an important community art workshop still in operation today.

Rooney’s prints were often bitingly satirical – she was interested in urban conservation and development, referring to the changing faces of Sydney and Newcastle in her work. An early phase of abstraction in the 1960s was something of an aberration, with the majority of her works executed with her trademark linear figuration.

Here we can see the pedestrian approach over the Sydney Harbour Bridge towards the central business district, with the Rocks to the east and graffiti signaling urban decay under the roadway in a darkened tunnel. This print is a critique of modern over-development in Sydney, an ongoing theme in Rooney's oeuvre.