You might not expect to find The Beatles, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or the Witch of Kings Cross at a rare book fair, but you’ll find all that and more at the Sydney Rare Book Fair.
The Fab Four show up in We Love You Beatles, published in 1971 and telling the story of their humble beginnings to stardom through a bold explosion of fun colour-saturated graphics. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is an illustrated version published in 1994 in panoramic format, illustrated in glorious technicolour and bringing alive horridly quivering Vogan monster flesh and vividly throbbing spacecraft by means of revolutionary digital graphic ‘paintbox’ technology.
The Witch of Kings Cross – real name Rosaleen Norton – is represented through the largest collection of drawings and watercolours to come up for sale since her death in 1979. Norton was a controversial bohemian figure. Born during a thunderstorm in Dunedin, NZ in 1917, she moved to Sydney in 1924 and became an artist, artist’s model and journalist. During her lifetime her controversial exhibitions were frequently raided by police.
This collection of 30 items presented by Josef Lebovic Gallery consists of twenty-four drawings or watercolours by Norton, four photographs of her, one newspaper clipping from 1950 about her work, and one photographic portrait of Sir Eugene Goossens, who was having an affair with Norton and became the centre of a 1956 scandal. It’s available to view for the first time at the Sydney Rare Book Fair.
If maps are more your thing, it’s worth a visit to the Fair simply to cast eyes on a spectacular 18th century Dutch sea atlas that is being presented by The Netherlands firm of Antiquariaat Forum BV. The magnificent contemporary hand-coloured composite sea atlas contains 53 detailed printed charts and three remarkable, excellently produced manuscript charts. The printed charts were designed by the best chart-makers and originally published by the best Dutch map publishers of the time. It appears the original owner made up his Atlas with the purpose of having all the charts covering the sea-route to the East Indies and beyond, along the coasts of China and Japan. The result is breathtaking.
The Sydney Rare Book Fair opens at The Glasshouse, State Library of NSW on Thursday October 22 at 6pm and is open Friday October 23 from 10am to 5pm and Saturday October 24 from 10am to 4pm. Entry is free. For more details click here.
