Raymond McGrath is one of those slightly submerged figures in Australian print history.

He was an artist, writer, architect, designer, and maker of a beautifully lyrical body of etchings and wood engravings in the 1920s. This 1979 catalogue accompanied an exhibition of his prints and watercolours at Deutscher Galleries in Melbourne, and functions as a compact catalogue raisonné of the graphic work. 

The early etchings move through Sydney Harbour, Parramatta, university buildings and semi-rural landscapes; elsewhere McGrath turns toward the stranger, more decorative language of wood engraving. Works such as The Sunflower, The Organ-Grinder and the illustrations for The Seven Songs of Meadow Lane have the hard black line and compressed theatricality of interwar book illustration, with figures hovering somewhere between pastoral, dream and stage set. The catalogue reproduces the works alongside edition information, dimensions and biographical notes, making it useful both as an art book and as a record of a relatively elusive Australian modernist. McGrath’s prints have subsequently become considerably more collectible than the modest catalogue documenting them.

Edition/Condition: Deutscher Galleries, Melbourne, 1979. First edition. Exhibition catalogue / catalogue raisonné. Paperback, extensively illustrated in black and white. Light age and shelf wear; internally clean and well preserved. Very good condition.