Posts made in July, 2011

The Sons of Clovis – a new book on Ern Malley

Posted by on Jul 23, 2011 in Malley | 0 comments

An article by David Rainey.   A new book on literary hoaxes, with new things to say about the Ern Malley hoax, is due for publication in late August.   Researching literary hoaxes has been a twenty year quest for Associate Professor David Brooks of the Department of English at the University of Sydney. Publicity for his new book The Sons of Clovis promises that it will be a scholarly tour de force, establishing previously unrecognised connections between the Australian scene...

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Ern Malley: an introduction

Posted by on Jul 23, 2011 in Malley | 0 comments

  An introduction by David Rainey.     One Saturday afternoon in October 1943, two young Sydney poets on war service in Melbourne found themselves at Victoria Barracks with time on their hands.  Lieutenant James McAuley and Corporal Harold Stewart held rhyme and metre somewhat sacred and wrote verse more traditional and classic in style than that of modernists of the period like Dylan Thomas, Henry Treece and T S Eliot and their Australian champions such as Adelaide poet Max...

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Cecily Crozier: a centenary portrait

Posted by on Jul 21, 2011 in Comment | 2 comments

A portrait of Cecily by David Rainey.   It is Melbourne, September 1940.  The Swans have just thrashed the Tigers to win their fourth premiership flag, and Australia has been at war for a year – a reality biting across a nation that once again has answered the call.  Factory bench and office desk alike collect dust as men and women depart for uncertain fates – some to battlefields in the Middle East, in Europe and in Africa; others to local training camps for conscripted...

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The Chinese Gentleman

Posted by on Jul 21, 2011 in Comment | 1 comment

Extract from “Memoirs of an Australian Woman” by Cecily Crozier. The painting was charming. A nude, simply standing in front of a most beautiful curtain. It was rose coloured silk, embroided with silver and gold leaves and flowers and birds in vibrant colours, it was a magnificent piece of hand embroidery. I was so taken with it I asked the painter Peter Armitage its provenance. He told me that a Chinese friend of his had asked him to paint a nude standing in front of it. I felt...

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