National Library Home > News & Events

NLA News cover On the cover this month

Mortimer Menpes (1855-1938)
Portrait of the Doge Loredano between 1900 and 1909
shellac on oil on cardboard; 48.5 x 36.0 cm
Pictorial Collection
nla.pic-an23514637
after Giovanni Bellini (d.1516) Florentine
The Doge Leonardo Loredan 1501-1504
oil on poplar; 61.6 x 45.1 em
Original in the National Gallery, London

This reproduction oil portrait of Bellini’s Doge features in the National Library of Australia’s current exhibition, The Great Masters, by Mortimer Menpes. (See story, page 3.) British-based, Australian-born Menpes presented this work and 37 other oil-paint copies of the 'Great Masters' of European art to the Commonwealth in 1911. The present exhibition is only the second occasion the paintings have been formally exhibited in Australia. Menpes was a protege of James McNeill Whistler, and a major figure in the printmaking revival that swept British art in the late nineteenth century. He was also widely credited with leading the revival of colour etching, and widening appreciation ofJapanese artistic traditions in Britain around that time.

 

August 2002 Volume XII Number 11

THE GREAT MASTERS, BY MORTIMER MENPES

Tim Fisher introduces the Library’s current exhibition

MAN WITH DREAMS FOR SALE, AND A LOT OF SANGFROID: ACTOR-MANAGER FRANK GERALD

Judy Cannon looks at the eventful life and times of a showman

LIBRARIES AND EROTICA

Edgar Crook considers a perhaps less-known component of the Library’s Collection

'LIKE A HIPPO AND SOMETHING ELSE': AN ALL-AUSTRALIAN BUNYIP PANTOMIME

Richard Stone describes the career of an original piece of Australian theatre

THE ROLLS SERIES

Sylvia Marchant examines an epic work on the Library’s shelves

FRIENDS

A regular news page about the activities of the Friends of the National Library of Australia

Download Cover to Cover (5.16Mb)

 

 

Return to NLA News Entry

If required, download the latest PDF reader from Adobe