Antique Print, Children's Illustrator, Joyce Dennys, Australian, Botany

"Mother Nature touched the branches here and there"

Vintage Gravure Joyce Dennys to illustrate Bushland Stories by Australian author Amy Eleanor Mack

Printed Sydney c.1921

Size of image = 15 x 19cm (6 x 7 2/3 inch)

Condition = illustration is in very good condition. There is a small tear, mended at the base, and the edges have a light yellow age discoloration.

Description: Mother Nature is illustrated as an elegant lady in an salmon pink classical-styled full length dress, that cascades in to the ground, where we see the right toes peeking out from under the voluminous folds. She stands in front of tree bough, holding a timber bucket, with 2 metal rings, of autumnal red paint splashed around the rim, with a long wooden handle of a paint brush protruding. Behind her we see evidence of her quest, to paint the leaves ready to fall, a few already  fallen to the ground. Her right hand is held above the green blue leaves of the eucalyptus bough next to receive benefit from her autumnal painting task. Her red hair is drawn back in a bun, held in place by a green-leaved wreath.

Joyce Dennys (1883-1991)

Dennys was born in Simla, Himachal Pradesh, India due to her father being a professional soldier in the Indian Army. She moved back to England where she became a voluntary aid detachment nurse from 1914-1917. She married a doctor, Tom Evans, in 1919 and they migrated to New South Wales. Having been a keen artist from a young age she had studied at Exeter Art School. On arriving in the Australia she was sought after for her illustration skills for local publications and constantly exhibiting her works. After 1922 her motherly duties, both social and domestic duties, she found profoundly frustrating as it put a sop to her career as a illustrator, a common tale for female artists and illustrators.

Amy Eleanor & Louise Mack

Amy Mack (1876-1939) was born in Adelaide. She had been a journalist and editor for the Sydney Morning Herald women's page for seven years. Mack found success in publishing 14 collections of bush-land stories with a sensitive narrative of the natural Australian bush, charmingly translated with equal sensitivity by Joyce Dennys as seen here explaining the onset of Autumn. Her sister was an equally successful poet, journalist, war correspondent & author, Louise Mack (1870-1935). From 1898 until 1901, Louise wrote "A Woman's Letter" for The Bulletin. Her first novel was published in 1896 and her only collection of poetry in 1901. Following this she traveled to England and Europe and did not return to Australia until 1916. In 1914 when war broke out Louise Mack was in Belgium where she continued to work as the first woman war correspondent for the Evening News and the London Daily Mail. Her eye-witness account of the German invasion of Antwerp and her adventures—A Woman's Experiences in the Great War—was published in 1915. Returning to Australia in 1916, Mack gave a series of lectures about her war experiences.