Nightfall in the Ti-Tree

Ex Libris: the printed image and the art of the book, 2010

In collaboration with her friend, Geraldine Rede, Violet Teague hand printed Nightfall in the ti-tree in 1905. Though it may look like a modest volume, small in scale and homemade in appearance, it was a work of great innovation, being the first book produced by two Australian artists.

Teague was greatly influenced by Japonisme, a style of western art that drew heavily on Japanese aesthetics. The story of Nightfall in the ti-tree loosely assumed the form of a series of haiku—a style of Japanese poem generally composed of seventeen syllables. Teague’s illustrations, too, were printed in the Japanese manner: water based ink was applied to woodblocks to give gradations in tone and recycled paper used in attempt to imitate Japanese mulberry paper.

A cautionary tale of the daily dangers faced by rabbits living in a ti-tree glade, Teague’s story is thought to have been inspired by her own pet rabbits, kept at her home, Trawalla. At the turn of the twentieth century, however, rabbits were already popular literary subjects—the story of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter having become an instant success after its publication in 1902.

Elspeth Pitt, Assistant Curator, Prints, Drawings & Photographs