What do you know about the pioneer days of letterpress platemaking in Australia?

Former TAFE SA graphic design lecturer Tony King – originally from Narrabri, NSW – is researching a PhD thesis on the work of the black-and-white artists of Smith's Weekly between 1919-1939, and wants the technical low-down.

King has traced the continuity between Smith’s Weekly and the Bulletin through J. F. Archibald, a former partner in the latter who became an enthusiastic contributor and sub-editor on early editions of Smith’s Weekly.

“Archibald’s first contributing artist and later business partner at the Bulletin, William McLeod, is credited with making use of the first etched zinc plates for letterpress – made using photographic processes – to be used in the Bulletin,” he says. “According to William Moore, in a chapter on ‘Black-and-white art’ in his 1934 history, The Story of Australian Art, McLeod, with his collaborator A. A. Lawson of S.T. Leigh & Co., apparently worked out the process from information that had come through, and printed examples in a recently arrived English publication.”

King says Moore gave no date for this, but thinks it would have been while Phil May was drawing for the Bulletin (1886-89). “May, years later, claimed that the development of his renowned strong minimal-line style was a response to the poor quality of the printing of his drawings for the Bulletin when he first worked there but, he was pleased to say, that quality had improved greatly before he returned to England.

“May’s style was to influence both David Low and Stan Cross.”

King says Cross was to make similar observations about the quality of the press work that early editions of Smith’s Weekly suffered until the paper’s operations moved from the Imperial Arcade – adjacent to Joynton Smith’s Imperial Hotel – to offices and a new press in Phillip Street.”

So what happened then? Tony King is seeking information about the technical environment in which black-and-white artists worked in Australia from about 1880-1940, “as it has a critical bearing on the way they worked and thus on the ‘look’ of the printed artwork.

“The situation evolved quite dramatically after the end of wood-block engraving and incrementally thereafter as photographs were rendered into print with ever improving clarity.”

His questions:

• were the plates used in the Bulletin the first photo-mechanical zinc picture blocks made for letterpress in Australia;

• what kinds of presses were the Bulletin and Smith’s Weekly – and perhaps Melbourne Punch – printed on through the 1880-1940 era;

• who were the block-makers, and what equipment did they use to service those publications, in-house or trade services?

King says that while most art-historical writing focusses on picture content, technical information about means and processes is hard to find. “I hope that there are still some letterpress people around who can at least tell me where to find the information I’m looking for,” he says.

Email Tony King at anthony.king@adelaide.edu.au or call 0400 960 846