Sydney Moderns includes a beautiful display of covers of The Home magazine, by artists including Thea Proctor and Hera Roberts.
Quoting a 1929 advertisement:
“The Home is the one authority in Australia in matters of good taste and has come to be recognised as one of the finest journals in the world to-day. It is in a state of continual warfare with the commonplace and the drab. Subscribe now and keep your mind in the mood of the moment and make your home a fit setting for the interesting and brilliant life of this century. A subscriber to The Home can never be old-fashioned or ordinary.”
– Art in Australia, State Library of NSW collection
Annette views The Home magazine on display at Sydney Moderns, Art Gallery of NSW, 23 August 2013
Stealing a few quiet minutes before her string quartet performed at Mrs Sotheby’s garden party in Chapter 40 of A Distant Prospect, Lucy retreated to the Sotheby’s parlour:
“It was a charming, chintzy room, filled with flowers and other items selected for the exclusive entertainment of Della’s mother: a wireless and gramophone, a bureau, a tea set and tea trolley, and a work basket in which, to my surprise, I found some very skilful embroidery. I took a seat on a large padded lounge, picked up the copy of The Home that lay on the coffee table, briefly tried on the spectacles used by the lady of the house to read the contents, then leant back and amused myself by pretending to be Mrs Sotheby enjoying a moment of solitude.”
Early covers of The Home (1920-1942) featuring post-modernist designs by Thea Proctor and Hera Roberts, commissioned by editor Sydney Ure Smith, are still widely considered the epitome of design publishing excellence in Australia.
You can see Sydney Moderns at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until October 7, 2013.
Sydney Moderns exhibition bookshop Art Gallery of NSW
Autographed copies of A Distant Prospect are available in the exhibition book shop.