print
- Museum number
- 1998,0712.18
- Title
- Object: Last hours, battle for Bligh St, Union Club 1958
- Description
-
Protesters campaigning against the demolition of an old colonial building in the central business district of Sydney. 1959
Etching and aquatint
- Production date
- 1959
- Dimensions
-
Height: 198 millimetres
-
Width: 252 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Artist's proof
Rooney was an early champion of conservation and environmental issues from the 1950s, when such views were then deeply unfashionable. "Last hours, battle for Bligh St, Union Club", after 6 states, was printed in an edition of 10; it was also printed in relief - an impression of the latter is held in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (information from Anne Ryan, Assistant Curator of Australian Prints and Drawings, Art Gallery of New South Wales, letter to Stephen Coppel, 4 August 1998). For further information on Rooney, see Anne Ryan, "An active conscience: social commentary in the etchings of Elizabeth Rooney", Imprint (Print Council of Australia), vol.32 no.1 (autumn 1997), pp.24-5.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1998
- Acquisition notes
- This group of eight prints were donated by Klaus Friedeberger who has known the artist from the time they both trained as artists between 1947 and 1950 at the East Sydney Technical College in Sydney. Mr Friedeberger, who as a German Jewish refugee had been interned in England and then sent to Australia as one of the `Dunera Boy' to internment camps in Australia, returned to England in 1950 and thereafter maintained a regular correspondence with Elizabeth Rooney, although neither has visited the other since then.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1998,0712.18