Allan Jordan: Difference between revisions
Jamesmcardle (talk | contribs) →Collections: ref format |
Jamesmcardle (talk | contribs) →Career: photographic interests with refs |
||
| Line 5: | Line 5: | ||
==Career== |
==Career== |
||
Born in [[Melbourne]] in 1898 and living in [[Malvern, Victoria|Malvern]], Allan Jordan's interest at 17 was in amateur photography, on the subject of which he contributed three articles, with concise diagrams, to ''The Australasian Photo-Review'', one in the 15 January, 1916 edition about making "Photographic Bookplates,"<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jordan |first=Allan |date=15 January 1916 |title=Photographic Book-plates |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-430400454 |journal=Australasian photo-review |publisher=Baker and Rouse |volume=23 |issue=1 |pages=30-31}}</ref> another on building a home darkroom in a bathroom,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jordan |first=Allan |date=15 August 1916 |title=A Photographic Darkroom |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-430400454 |journal=Australasian photo-review.Vol. 23 No. 8 () |publisher=Baker & Rouse |volume=23 |pages=432-3}}</ref> and one instructing how to use a camera as a [[Solar camera|solar enlarger]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jordan |first=Allan |date=15 December 1915 |editor-last=Burke |editor-first=Keast |title=Daylight enlarging with a magazine camera |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/233311937 |journal=Australasian photo-review |publisher=Baker & Rouse |volume=22 |issue=12 |pages=670, 673}}</ref> He was also awarded prizes in the ''A P-R'' competitions.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=15 September 1915 |editor-last=Burke |editor-first=Keast |title=A. P-R. competitions |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-424662412 |journal=Australasian photo-review |location=Sydney |publisher=Baker & Rouse |volume=22 |issue=9 |pages=28, 35, 42}}</ref> |
|||
| ⚫ | |||
| ⚫ | |||
He worked mainly in woodcuts and wood engraving and was an influential teacher in printmaking and book arts in Australia. His oeuvre numbers sixty graphic prints, twenty designed and illustrated small books and seventy-one bookplates, as well as drawings, paintings, pastels and small mosaics, a body of work noted by Robert Littlewood "for its consistent quality of design and draftsmanship combined with the expert manner in which the works have been created."<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Littlewood |first=Robert C |date=December 2014 |title=Bookplate stories: Russell Francis Wright |url=http://www.bookplatesociety.org.au/images/stories/Bookplate_Content/Newsletters/tnabs_no%2035_web.pdf |journal=The New Australian Bookplate Society : collectors, bibliophiles, artists and others dedicated to promoting bookplates. |volume=35 |pages=4–5}}</ref> |
He worked mainly in woodcuts and wood engraving and was an influential teacher in printmaking and book arts in Australia. His oeuvre numbers sixty graphic prints, twenty designed and illustrated small books and seventy-one bookplates, as well as drawings, paintings, pastels and small mosaics, a body of work noted by Robert Littlewood "for its consistent quality of design and draftsmanship combined with the expert manner in which the works have been created."<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Littlewood |first=Robert C |date=December 2014 |title=Bookplate stories: Russell Francis Wright |url=http://www.bookplatesociety.org.au/images/stories/Bookplate_Content/Newsletters/tnabs_no%2035_web.pdf |journal=The New Australian Bookplate Society : collectors, bibliophiles, artists and others dedicated to promoting bookplates. |volume=35 |pages=4–5}}</ref> |
||
Revision as of 10:47, 22 March 2022
Allan Holder Jordan (1898-1982) was an Australian painter, printmaker and teacher.
Career
Born in Melbourne in 1898 and living in Malvern, Allan Jordan's interest at 17 was in amateur photography, on the subject of which he contributed three articles, with concise diagrams, to The Australasian Photo-Review, one in the 15 January, 1916 edition about making "Photographic Bookplates,"[1] another on building a home darkroom in a bathroom,[2] and one instructing how to use a camera as a solar enlarger.[3] He was also awarded prizes in the A P-R competitions.[4]
Jordan studied at Swinburne Technical College from 1919.
He worked mainly in woodcuts and wood engraving and was an influential teacher in printmaking and book arts in Australia. His oeuvre numbers sixty graphic prints, twenty designed and illustrated small books and seventy-one bookplates, as well as drawings, paintings, pastels and small mosaics, a body of work noted by Robert Littlewood "for its consistent quality of design and draftsmanship combined with the expert manner in which the works have been created."[5]
Littlewood identifies "three notable areas of interest in Jordan's creative effort: linocuts and colour woodcuts in the 1930s; book design and illustration in the 1940s; and bookplate design for two decades from 1939 until 1958."[5][6]
After complaints to the Federal Treasurer that some of Australia's coin designs were heraldically incorrect, action was taken in September 1946, when Prime Minister Chifley, while at Renmmark, was presented with a suggested lyrebird design by Jordan to replace the coat of arms displayed on the sixpence that was claimed to be obsolete. Chifley promised to consider the Jordan's design made in collaboration with Sydney V. Hagley of the Numismatic Society. Ultimately the design of the coin was unchanged.[7]
Amongst his work are five wood engravings for Joseph O'Dwyer's The Turning Year 1944.[8][9] Other designs he created for Hawthorn Press, Melbourne in the 1940s included a series of paperback booklets printed on lesser-quality wartime paper and sold at 1 shilling and sixpence, which were written by Frank Clune, each dealing with some aspect of Australian history,[10][11] such as his 1944 Stories of Central Australia.[12][13]
Jordan joined artists Neville Barnett, Roy Davies, Adrian Feint, Lionel Lindsay and Philip Litchfield in a revival of the bookplate before World War Two.[14] His Ex Libris bookplates often employ intricate rebuses to characterise their owners, and such is the case with that he created for World War Two hero Russell Francis Wright MBE (1920-2012).[5][15]
Jordan’s prints and paintings are in national and international collections.
Reception
Jordan's work in a 1931 group show was praised in The Age as "the most unique of the four contributors,"for his fifteen color and black prints from wood blocks" and picked out for "an outstanding print in black, Treasure Ship, admirably drawn and full of movement."[16] The Bulletin reviewing the same show reports that "Allan Jordan has been trying to capture some of the subtlety of Melbourne's winter atmosphere per the very difficult medium of the woodblock, and in The Changing Skyline, Exhibition Building and Winter Sunshine, Fitzroy Garden, has succeeded in nabbing some of the bolder contrasts."[17]
Of a joint exhibition he held in Melbourne in 1932 with Dorothy Lungley, the Age reviewed his linocuts, etchings and drypoints, describing the colour prints as "uniformly good in execution and conception, and from the purely decorative point of view, are in advance of most of the things we have seen lately produced by this process," but noted that while "the etchings are artistic in execution," they "might have been cleaner in line in some cases."[18]
Teaching
Jordan, after being a student, then influential teacher there,[19] was Head of the Swinburne Art School, retiring in 1959.[20][21][22] During his tenure the school grew from three small studios in which art studies, mostly craftwork, painting and wood carving, were taught by the then Director, Mr. Prior, himself a modeller. Enrolment grew to over 100 full day diploma students and a total of 300 with part time students at the time of Jordan's retirement.[21]
Personal life
Jordan lived at Caversham Court, 763 Esplanade Mornington,[23] and in retirement with wife Nellie at Red Hill Road, Red Hill,[24] then at 23 Monaro Road Kooyong.[23] He first married Elsie who predeceased him, and then Nellie May whose death was in 1967,[24] well before his own on May 17, 1982 at the Alfred Hospital.[25] P. Neville Barnett remembered Jordan as "a genial character in a quiet, ingrained, good-natured way."[5] He was survived by his daughter Marie Elspeth Wright.[25][26]
Exhibitions
- 1931, 3 November - 17 December: Group show with John Shirlow, Esther Paterson and Charles Nuttall. Fine Art Galleries, Melbourne[16][17]
- 1932, from 29 November: Joint show with Dorothy Lungley at Everyman'a Library, 332 Collins Street[18]
- 1933, from 16 October; Annual exhibition of the Arts and Crafts Society of Victoria, opened by the Lieutenant-Governor Sir W. Irvine. Lower Melbourne Town Hall.[27]
- 1934, to 29 September: Newman Gallery; group show with sixteen other exhibitors, including John Shirlow, Victor Cobb, Oscar Binder, J. C. Goodhart, Sydney Ure Smith, Jessie C. Traill, Harold Herbert, John C. Goodchild, Cyril Dillon and Charles Nuttall.[28]
- 1943, from 1 December; Inclusion in a group show of ninety-one paintings and etchings with Arnold Shore, Max Meldrum, John Rowell, Jas. Quinn, John Farmer, Mary Hurry, Dora Serle, Margaret Pestell, Dora Wilson, Isabel Tweddle, Aileen Dent, Murray Griffin, Geo. Colville, and Victor Cog. Hawthorn Library.[29]
- 1946, to 11 July; The Bread and Cheese Club group show, Myer Art Gallery[30]
- 1947, from 23 November; The Bread and Cheese Club's Art Group spring exhibition 272 Post Office-place, Melbourne.[31]
Collections
- The Graham Bookplate Collection; bookplates collected by David H Graham[32]
- National Gallery of Australia[33]
- National Gallery of Victoria[34]
- Hamilton Art Gallery[35]
- Benalla Art Gallery[36]
- Rijksmuseum[37]
References
- ^ Jordan, Allan (15 January 1916). "Photographic Book-plates". Australasian photo-review. 23 (1). Baker and Rouse: 30–31.
- ^ Jordan, Allan (15 August 1916). "A Photographic Darkroom". Australasian photo-review.Vol. 23 No. 8 (). 23. Baker & Rouse: 432–3.
- ^ Jordan, Allan (15 December 1915). Burke, Keast (ed.). "Daylight enlarging with a magazine camera". Australasian photo-review. 22 (12). Baker & Rouse: 670, 673.
- ^ Burke, Keast, ed. (15 September 1915). "A. P-R. competitions". Australasian photo-review. 22 (9). Sydney: Baker & Rouse: 28, 35, 42.
- ^ a b c d Littlewood, Robert C (December 2014). "Bookplate stories: Russell Francis Wright" (PDF). The New Australian Bookplate Society : collectors, bibliophiles, artists and others dedicated to promoting bookplates. 35: 4–5.
- ^ Littlewood, Robert C; Jordan, Allan; Lytlewode Press (2014). Ten bookplates by Allan Jordan. ISBN 978-1-905611-59-1. OCLC 900070422.
- ^ "Design of our coins : Change Suggested". The Sydney Morning Herald. 12 July 1947. p. 2. Retrieved 2022-03-22.
- ^ "Books of the Day". The Age. 30 December 1944. p. 5. Retrieved 2022-03-22.
- ^ O'Dwyer, Joseph (1944). The turning year. Melbourne: Hawthorn Press. OCLC 11066314.
- ^ "Books of the Day : Australian Adventures". The Age. 29 December 1945. p. 9. Retrieved 2022-03-22.
- ^ Clune, Frank; Gartner, John; Jordan, Allan; Hawthorn Press (1944). The red heart: sagas of Centralia. Melbourne: Hawthorn Press. OCLC 220322607.
- ^ "Clune in Centralia". The Bulletin. 65 (3375): 3. 18 Oct 1944.
- ^ "Central Australia". Western Mail. Perth. 28 December 1944. p. 27.
- ^ Ferson, Mark (June 1988). "The Australian Bookplate Collector : A Vanishing Species?". Biblionews and Australian notes & queries. 13 (2). Book Collectors' Society of Australia: 36.
- ^ "Captain Russell Wright". www.telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2022-03-21.
- ^ a b "Australian Artists : Work at the Fine Art Galleries". The Age. 3 November 1931. p. 5. Retrieved 2022-03-22.
- ^ a b "Sundry Shows". The Bulletin. 52 (2701): 18. 18 November 1931.
- ^ a b "Art Notes : Color Prints And Etchings". The Age. 29 November 1932. p. 5. Retrieved 2022-03-22.
- ^ National Commercial Banking Corporation of Australia (1982). The seventies: Australian paintings and tapestries from the collection of National Australia Bank. Melbourne, Australia: The Bank. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-909873-34-9. OCLC 11599730.
- ^ McCulloch, Alan; McCulloch, Susan; McCulloch Childs, Emily (2006). The new McCulloch's encyclopedia of Australian art. Fitzroy, Vic.; Carlton, Vic.: Aus Art Editions ; in association with the Miegunyah Press. p. 561. ISBN 978-0-522-85317-9. OCLC 1135181250.
- ^ a b Hames, Bernard (1960). "Interview with Allan Jordan (1960 Swinburne Jubilee Interviews 07 of 15)" (PDF).
- ^ "Fifty years at School". The Age. 21 August 1963. p. 15.
- ^ a b "Allan Holder Jordan". The Age. 30 August 1982. p. 16.
- ^ a b "Law Notices". The Age. 18 May 1967. p. 19.
- ^ a b "Obituary". The Age. 19 May 1982. p. 26.
- ^ "Engagements". The Age. 30 April 1954. p. 7.
- ^ "The Arts And Crafts Society : Annual Exhibition". The Age. 16 October 1933. p. 5. Retrieved 2022-03-22.
- ^ "Art Notes : Etchings on view". The Age. Melbourne. 18 September 1934. p. 7. Retrieved 2022-03-22.
- ^ "Art exhibition at Hawthorn". The Age. 2 December 1943. p. 4. Retrieved 2022-03-22.
- ^ "Art Group Exhibits". The Age. 2 Jul 1946. p. 5.
- ^ "Club Show". The Age. 25 November 1947. p. 4.
- ^ "ATL: Unpublished Collections". tiaki.natlib.govt.nz. Retrieved 2022-03-21.
- ^ National Gallery of Australia. (1993), "v : illustrations ; 25 cm.", Annual report, Parliamentary paper (Australia. Parliament), Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, p. 19, ISSN 1323-5192, nla.obj-964885761, retrieved 22 March 2022 – via Trove
- ^ "Allan Jordan works". National Gallery of Victoria Collections.
- ^ "Allan Jordan". Hamilton Gallery. Retrieved 2022-03-21.
- ^ www.bibliopolis.com. "Parrots by Allan Jordan, Australian on Josef Lebovic Gallery". Josef Lebovic Gallery. Retrieved 2022-03-21.
- ^ "Ex libris van S.V. Hagley, Allan Jordan, 1908 - 1982". Rijksmuseum. Retrieved 2022-03-21.