Ivan Smith THE DEATH OF A WOMBAT First Edition
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Ivan Smith THE DEATH OF A WOMBAT First Edition
First edition, first print hardback of THE DEATH OF A WOMBAT, by Ivan Smith and published by Wren Publishing Pty Ltd., Melbourne, in 1972. With paintings, etchings and line drawings by Clifton Pugh. Foreword by H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh.The book is in good condition (Clean green cloth boards with gilt lettering on the spine), with some wear to the illustrated dust jacket which is not price clipped (creasing / rubbing/ fraying to the edges, a one inch tear and chipping to the top and bottom spine edges and some scratches/ rubbing to spine, two one inch closed tears together with some creasing lines/ rubbing around the top edges, and some rubbing/ markings at the back. There is a slight moisture stain around the top edges and tanning around the spine and along the edges inside the jacket which are not visible from outside). There is very slight yellowing towards the page ends. Otherwise, internally, the pages are clean and tight and there are no tears and no inscriptions.
Ivan smith was born in Perth, Western Australia. After a year in Europe he returned to Perth. He was appointed Radio features Editor for the Australian broadcasting commission in Sydney, and expanded his writing activities. His writing awards include Ohio State Award, a national film council award, and award from the Australian writers coveted radio documentary award. He had great success with The Death of a Wombat.
Clifton Ernest Pugh AO, (1924 1990) was an Australian artist and three-time winner of Australia's Archibald Prize. He was strongly influenced by German Expressionism, and was known for his landscapes and portraiture.
Important early group exhibitions include The Antipodeans, the exhibition for which Bernard Smith drafted a manifesto in support of Australian figurative painting, an exhibition in which Arthur Boyd, David Boyd, John Brack, Robert Dickerson, John Perceval and Charles Blackman showed; a joint exhibition with Barry Humphries, in which the two responded to Dadaism; and Group of Four at the Victorian Artists Society Gallery with Pugh, John Howley, Don Laycock and Lawrence Daws.
Pugh was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1985 for service to Australian Art. In 1990 he was appointed as the Australian War Memorial's official artist at the 75th anniversary celebrations of the Gallipoli landing.
"Ivan Smith was a Features Writer-Producer the ABC when he wrote the radio script, The Death of a Wombat, which won so many international awards, including the coveted Italia Prize.
The Death of a Wombat has been called many things: a profound allegorical statement of the human condition, a vivid and deeply moving word picture which sets the standard for imaginative feature writing. So superlatively is the story told, we feel a terrible, urgent, personal sense of tragedy in the death of this animal.
Now published for the first time, The Death of a Wombat remains the same brilliantly imaginative impression in words', succeeding in being both detailed documentary and superb lyricism.
As the book could not be 'illustrated' in the usual sense of the word - it needed an artist who could paint his own allegorical poem, using The Death of a Wombat as his theme - the publisher decided to approach Clifton Pugh, who has such an enviable reputation in international art circles, believing that this great Australian bush painter would do justice to such an exacting task.
Clifton Pugh, excited by the challenge, created a magnificent art collection, The Death of a Wombat, comprising seventeen major oil paintings - fifteen of which are reproduced in colour in the text - and more than fifty etchings and line drawings, which must be hailed as a major event in the international and Australian art world.
Here can be seen nature in all its varying moods: the breakers rushing like a horde of angry rats towards the beaches; dawn rising over the Australian bush; the wombat lurching slowly on through the bush with friendly waddle and crump; then, the approaching puddle of fire and the terror of the animals, savage and primitive, as the koalas fall scorched from the trees and the kangroos race, panicking, against the blaze; and, finally, the wombat himself, friendly, pacific, innocent, with little scrub fires burning in his fur, seeking his cool nirvana in the river.
Together author and the artist have produced in words and video story which is sometimes tender, sometimes savage - but always moving, truthful, uncompromising and completely unforgettable."
Large Format. 80 pages. Illustrated with 16 full page coloured plates, 5 full page black & white plates, and numerous black & white line drawings in text, catalogue of paintings.
ISBN: 0 85885 009 5
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Ivan Smith THE DEATH OF A WOMBAT First Edition