POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Bookplate design entitled 'Stenocarpus Scroll'

Object No. P2996

Lucien Felix Henry was born in 1850 in Provence, in the south of France. He arrived in Paris to study art in 1867 and was accepted into Gerome's studio at the Ecoles des Beaux Arts. His studies were disrupted by the Franco-Prussian War and the siege of Paris. He played a leading role in the popular movement to defend the Paris Commune in 1871 as Chef de la Legion, responsible for the defence of the 14th arrondissement. After their defeat, Henry, along with some 4000 other Communards, was incarcerated in the French penal colony of New Caledonia for seven years. In 1879 the Communards were given amnesty and Henry arrived in Sydney. That year the International Exhibition was held in Sydney, ushering in a decade of prosperous growth for the colony. Henry successfully argued for state involvement in art education and by the end of the decade he had become a widely respected teacher and artist at Sydney Technical College. His Parisian art education had encouraged interdisciplinary work between the arts and industry which he sought to foster locally. Coinciding with the movement towards federation, Henry expressed a strong desire to see the development of an 'Australian Style'. Henry proposed to reinvigorate the classical language of decoration with stylised versions of Australian flora and fauna as 'motives for the decoration of any construction from a cottage to a public building'. His major project was to be a book entitled 'Australian Decorative Arts' for which he made some one hundred watercolour designs between 1889-91. In 1891 Henry returned to Paris to seek a publisher. The accompanying text, however, remained largely unwritten and the severe economic depression of the 1890s made publication of such a lavish work impossible. Henry died in 1896 before the book could be published. The watercolour designs from the unpublished book, of which this is one, were given to the Museum in 1911 by Elizabeth Catherine Sea. These designs reflect Henry's intense interest in the use of native motifs, and in particular explore what Henry argued was the artistic potential of the waratah. Henry wrote that the waratah's 'rigid lines offer themselves ready for use for constructive ornamentation...it carries qualities of style and a firmness such as very few flowers, if any, could give so abundantly.' The illustrations were championed at the time of acquisition by the Museum's director, R T Baker, who shared Henry's interest in the potential of Australian imagery to define a distinctively Australian school of decorative art. Baker described Henry as 'an artist possessing real genius, and his originality in design and other fields of fine and Applied Art will live long in the annals of New South Wales technical education'. However, the illustrations were subsequently overlooked for half a century until they were rediscovered in a storeroom in 1977. Henry relished the possibility of transforming native flora and fauna into decorative forms. As an instructor in art at Sydney Technical College, he championed their use in the decorative arts, design and architecture. His own work draws on the shapes and forms of Australian native plants as the basis of his designs.

Loading...

Summary

Object Statement

Design, 'Stenocarpus Scroll', from unpublished book, 'Australian Decorative Arts', watercolour and gouache over pencil, made by Lucien Henry, Australia / France, 1889-1891

Physical Description

Design, 'Stenocarpus Scroll', from unpublished book, 'Australian Decorative Arts', watercolour and gouache over pencil, made by Lucien Henry, Australia / France, 1889-1891 Illustrated bookplate showing a foliate design. In the middle is a gold sun with rays embodying a distressed human face surrounded by sixteen waratah flowers and leaves. The background is painted bright blue and covered by thin black contour lines.

DIMENSIONS

Height

610 mm

Width

455 mm

PRODUCTION

Notes

This is one of a series of designs prepared for a proposed "Australian Decorative Arts" book by Lucien Henry. Lucien Felix Henry was born in Sisteron, France in 1850. He arrived in Sydney in 1880 and died in France on March 10, 1896. He was a painter, sculptor, designer and teacher. Henry studied in Paris (under Viollet-le-Duc, architect) and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (under Gerome). A French 'communard', Henry was active in the commune of 1871 for which he was sentenced to death, but was later reprieved and sent to New Caledonia. At the end of his sentence he went to Sydney, where he became instructor at the first modelling school in Australia, and in 1883 the first lecturer in art at the school established when the Board of Technical Education took over the former Sydney Mechanics School of Art. He published 'The Legend of the Waratah', and dedicated it to a prominent figure in Australian Labor politics, Fred Bloomfield, directing special attention to 'the great decorative possibilities in the forms of Australian wildflowers'. Henry was intensely interested in Australian flora, and, through his strong, engaging personality, imbued his students with much of his own power of perception. Among his pupils were: James Nagle, a superintendent of technical education in NSW; G.H.Aurousseau; Gregory Macintosh and Alexander Murray. Henry designed the 'Captain Cook' and 'Australia' subject stained-glass windows in the Town Hall, Sydney and the chandelier in the Hotel Australia, Sydney. He also painted many portraits and modelled many busts. His pioneering ideas and t he opposition to them are given in an article in 'Australian Art', 1888. He returned to Europe in 1889. Reference: McCulloch, "Encyclopedia of Australian Art" p.567

HISTORY

Notes

The watercolour designs from Henry's unpublished book were given to the Museum in 1911 by Elizabeth Catherine Sea, the aunt of Fanny Broadhurst (Henry's former student and partner).

SOURCE

Credit Line

Gift of Margaret See, 1977

Acquisition Date

28 September 1977

Copyright for the above image is held by the Powerhouse and may be subject to third-party copyright restrictions. Please submit an Image Licensing Enquiry for information regarding reproduction, copyright and fees. Text is released under Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative licence.

Image Licensing Enquiry

Object Enquiry