On Traill of print

The work of one of Australia’s greatest printmakers has gone on display at Geelong Gallery.
The National Gallery of Australia exhibition features the works of Jessie Traill, who took up etching in the early 1900s before making an international name for herself.
The gallery said Traill “forged a radical path for printmaking through the duality of her vision”.
“Depicting the beauty of the natural environment alongside dynamic images of industry, her lyrical response showed a profound understanding of the dilemma which requires nature to be sacrificed in order for the modern world to progress,” the gallery said.
“From early views of Victorian rural scenes and Melbourne as the Paris of the South, through to her major series documenting the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the prints of Jessie Traill combine her poetic sensitivity with an unerring eye for line and form.”
Traill’s impact was felt beyond the realms of Australian printmaking, the gallery explained.
“Traill’s prints are recognised as vital to the evolution of post-war Modernism, with her unique visual expression finding an ideal medium in the etching plate.”
Print school and historian, Dr Colin Holden, this week conducted a tour of the exhibition: Stars in the River – the Prints of Jessie Traill.
Traill’s works remained beautiful and magical, Dr Holden said.
He told the tour they how the prints covered a wide range of subject-matter, from landscape to industrial streetscape, culminating in Traill’s famous sequence of etchings tracing the progressive development of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, from the laying of the first pylons to its completion.
The gallery said the exhibition would continue with a free “creative conversation” on 23 January with Emeritus Professor Sasha Grishin and contemporary printmakers Alexis Beckett, Martin King and Joel Wolter discussing Traill’s work.