The Fascination of Book-Plates

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 258, 21 January 1928, Page 24

The Fascination of Book-Plates

Arrangements Made to Hold Exhibition in Auckland Early This Year .. . New Zealand Designers . . .

(Wlrittpn for THE SUN by , WILLIAM MOORE,) SURING his visit to Sydney, Mr. John Barr, Chief Librarian of the Public Libary and Director of the Art Gallery, Auckland, has made arrangements with the Hon. John Lane Mullins, M.L.C., president of the Australian Ex Libris Society, for a loan collection of Australian bookplates. It will consist of a hundred bookplates, including examples by Norman Lindsay, Lionel Lindsay, D. H. Souter, Adrian Feint, the best designer of the young group, and many others. The loan exhibition of Australian bookplates, which will be distinct from the loan exhibitions in the Art Gallery, will be held in the Public Library during the early part of this year.

Since the Australian Ex Libris Society was founded in 1923, the demand for bookplates has increased considerably, the annual output being now a hundred. There are over a hundred members, of the society, including t! ee in Auckland, one in Czechoslovakia, and two in the United States.

While the" bookplate may be regarded as a mark of ownership, which reminds the borrower of a volume that it should be returned to its possessor, it is something more than that. | It has a personal and an artistic side which give it a definite charm. The subject, which may indicate the tastes of a booklover or which may be a play upon his name, allows the artist an ample opportunity to compose something quite original. Though small in space there is no limit to ingenuity in design. Lindsay and Souter Two of our first artists to design bookplates were Norman Lindsay and D. H. Souter. The earliest by the former were reproduced an a rare brochure “Ex Libris” by the late Professor Elkington, which was published in Melbourne in 1900. Souter’s plates are effectively drawn on decorative

lines, the famous cat being the device for his own plate. Before the Ex L,ibris Society was started, only about 50 plates were designed in about five years and most of these were done in Sydney, while now a certain number are being produced in every state. A small set of plates has been presented to the Sydney Gallery; and collections have been formed for the Commonwealth National Library, Canberra, the Public Library, Melbourne, and the Art Gallery, Perth.

And while this - progress has been made at home, Australian bookplates have gradually become better Known abroad. On their recent visit, the Duke and Duchess of York were presented with personal plates designed by Adrian Feint. Australia, with the single exception of the United States, had the largest display at the exhibition of the Bookplate Association International held at Los Angeles in 1927, the award for the best woodcut design being gained by Lionel Lindsay. Favourite Authors Mr. Mullins, who posseses the largest collection of Australian bookplates in the Commonwealth, commends the adoption of children’s bookplates, to challenge in those of tender years a regard for the bodies of books, as well as a desire to become possessed of their contents. “When a child has pasted his bookplate into a volume,” he remarks, “he should be taught to regard it as one of his treasured possessions and treat

it with care and consideration. In these days, when education is universal and the output of the printing presses so prolific, it is a common practice to decorate a few shelves with the authors one loves best. In such a case a bookplate in each book protects the owner against the defective memory of the borrower. It is

an easy way to keep one's books and one’s friends.” The size of a bookplate, he suggests, should be suitable for ths usual format of a book, that is to saj, generally, to fit into an octavo volume. Any design may be reproduced by the inexpensive process of a zinc, block costing a few shillings, from which t large number of impressions may he taken. It may also be reproduced by a wood engraving or by an etching both of which are more costly, but are worth the difference in expenditure. Faulty Design Mr. Mullins finds that there is a lack of recognition of the purpose and association of a bookplate even among those who design them. “Any sketch of any conceivable object with any name whatever under it, is oftefl employed. THbis is a mistake, as then is no intimate expression of the taste of the owner. The lettering is some times of a kind to mar the design »ud occasionally the size of the compos tion makes it useless for an ordinary library volume. Lettering is not the least among the essentials of s god bookplate. The design of a mark ®‘ ownership is worthy of being studied with considerable care.” A rough estimate of the number oi Australian bookplates shows that tke total is well over two thousand and d this amount about 1.500 are armorial plates, the early citizens using their coats of arms or crests for the designs. Strictly speaking, these are not Australian plates as most of them were designed in England but a fe* were done by two craftsman woo once followed their profession!* Sydney. One of these was Clint, a son of George Clint, famous painter of players, whose P<m traits of Edmund Kean and others adorn the walls of the Garrick W London. Among the very early pm*®j there is one designed for Bfclhj Field, a Judge, of the Supreme Conn of New South Wales, who in 1819 fl® lished “The First Fruits of Austram* Poetry.” He was a friend of Chan** Lamb, who refers to him in hi* es*J on “Distant Correspondents.” Mullins will shortly publish a voßjj*' on Australian armorial plates wMQj will contain interesting regarding the family histories of leao ing Australian citizens of long ageAuckland Designers

The pictorial plates in this CO PP**I only date back to 1892, when Pew! F. S. Spence designed the first, since then quite a number of artists have taken up this branc art. In the new brochure issued . the Ex Libris Society, there * plate by Huia Wiseman, of which is cleverly drawn. As a upon her own name she huia birds as the motive of the position. I presume plates have been made by T. V. Gulliver an ' J. Payne, also of Auckland, wbg members of the society. „ In proportion to the population * Zealand is said to have the readers in the world. As it will a literary as well as an artisti traction, I should not be suy p if the loan exhibition of Austr -gt bokplates will be one of the popular of the series. It is 1 hoped that it will stimulate the _ , duction of bookplates in New Ze and that institutions as well as viduals will commission artists sign plates. It is one of the expensive forms of art and i have a rare artistic as well as a sonal value.