Collection
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Artist
Noel Counihan
Australia
04 Oct 1913 - 05 Jul 1986
About
Noel Counihan was born in Melbourne, and became a committed social realist painter, newspaper caricaturist and printmaker. He enrolled at the National Gallery School, Melbourne in October 1929, studying drawing under Charles Wheeler. He made his first prints (linocuts) with tools supplied by Eric Thake which were printed by his friend James Flett in 1931, the same year he joined the Young Communist League and became actively involved in the left-wing political movement.
Thought to be one of his first lithographs, this print is number four in a folio of six lithographs published by Counihan in 1948. The images were drawn on stone at the home of Alexander Rembrandt (Rem) McClintock at Kew, Melbourne, who printed them. The cover of the portfolio had an additional lithograph A metal pourer, printed from zinc. Some were printed on Worthy Signature laid paper, but the artist had difficulties with this, and made the rest of the edition on commercial lithographic printing paper - the number of each are unknown. There were a number of related lithographs produced that were not included in the final folio of six. In 1977 the artist noted that it was a comment on the 'new look' in women's fashion. Other prints in the set were based on a visit to Ruwolt's foundries in Richmond, and portraits of his mother and son.
Hendrik Kolenberg and Anne Ryan, 'Australian prints from the Gallery's collection', AGNSW, 1998
Details
Date
1948
Materials used
lithograph from stone, black ink on ivory wove paper
Edition
23/100
Dimensions
42.3 x 25.4 cm image (irreg.); 54.8 x 43.1 cm sheet
Signature & date
Signed l.r., pencil "Counihan". Not dated.
Credit
Purchased 1948
Location
Not on display
Accession number
8147.4
Shown in 2 exhibitions
Exhibition history
Everyday Life, prints, drawings and watercolours from the collections of Australian and European Art:
- Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 01 Oct 1994–27 Nov 1994
- Goulburn Regional Art Gallery 04 Mar 1995–01 Apr 1995
- Griffith Regional Art Gallery 03 May 1995–03 Jun 1995
- Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, Australia 22 Jun 1995–30 Jul 1995
Australian prints from the Gallery's collection (1998-1999), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 06 Nov 1998–07 Feb 1999
Referenced in 2 publications
Bibliography
Hendrik Kolenberg and Anne Ryan, Australian prints from the Gallery's collection, Sydney, 1998, 79 (illus.). cat.no. 66
Hendrik Kolenberg, Everyday life: prints drawings and watercolours from the collections of Australian and European art, Sydney, 1994. cat.no: 13b