Hertha Kluge-Pott : printmaker (deluxe edition)

With an introduction by Roger Butler and contributions by Caroline Field, Inge King & Jenny Zimmer. Melbourne : Macmillan Art Publishing, 2015. Quarto, lettered cloth in illustrated dustjacket, pp. 367, illustrated. The deluxe edition, limited to only 30 copies, presented in a cloth slipcase, with an original signed etching loosely enclosed title ‘Trace of a Summer’ limited to 30 copies, created for this edition.

‘This comprehensively illustrated and fully documented volume on the life and works of master printmaker, Hertha Kluge-Pott, has been scrupulously researched by author Hilary Maddocks. Kluge-Pott’s personal oeuvre is enormous, some 418 editions all printed by herself and most represented in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Her favoured technique is intaglio, with the rich textural qualities of drypoint explored to the full in her wonderful interpretations of the coastal scenery and vegetation of Cape Bridgewater in South-west Victoria. The subjects of sometimes truly monumental prints range from the minutiae of ants and seedpods to expansive panoramas of the entire Cape. Hilary Maddocks’ interviews with the artist document her personal history during the war years and the American Occupation of Berlin and her dramatic 1958 journey to Australia on board the ill-fated Skaubryn, which sank in the Bay of Bengal leaving her with no possessions and only the clothes she was wearing. Maddocks also provides expansive information on the artist’s RMIT years from 1978-1994 and her extensive exhibition history. The book is lavishly illustrated, with hundreds of reproductions – particularly those prints of her beloved coastal scenery and its flora and fauna which Hertha Kluge-Pott rendered with great affection and attention to detail from the early 1980s. Hertha Kluge-Pott’s prints provide a unique vision of the Australian landscape as well as forming a personal and revelatory diary of an artist’s life. Printing & Printmaking. Australian. This comprehensively illustrated and fully documented volume on the life and works of master printmaker, Hertha Kluge-Pott, has been scrupulously researched by author Hilary Maddocks. The book is lavishly illustrated, with hundreds of reproductions – particularly those prints of her beloved coastal scenery and its flora and fauna which Hertha Kluge-Pott rendered with great affection and attention to detail from the early 1980s. Hertha Kluge-Pott’s prints provide a unique vision of the Australian landscape as well as forming a personal and revelatory diary of an artist’s life.’ – the publisher