Art on the page

CHRIS HATZIS
Eavesdrop on Experts, a podcast about stories of inspiration and insights. It’s where expert types obsess, confess and profess. You’ll meet people you wouldn’t normally meet but will be glad you did. I’m Chris Hatzis. Let’s eavesdrop on experts changing the world… one lecture, one experiment or one interview, at time.

SUSAN MILLARD
Downstairs is all the international material and upstairs is all the Australiana...

CHRIS HATZIS
Today we are venturing into a high-security facility, that has finely tuned climate controlled
conditions.

ANDI HORVATH
Wow, so this is… we’re in a limited access area.

SUSAN MILLARD
Yes. Very secure. Very special.

ANDI HORVATH
High security for rare books.

CHRIS HATZIS
It’s the vault for the rare book collection at the Baillieu library at the University of
Melbourne. Our reporter Dr Andi Horvath caught up with Susan Millard, the special collections librarian, during her preparations for an exhibition called ‘Art on the Page’.

‘Art on the Page’ traces the tradition of book illustration, from 20th century European artists like Picasso, Matisse and Miró, to contemporary Australian artists and authors.

ANDI HORVATH
Susan, we're in the bowels of the building now, on our way to the rare books collection.

SUSAN MILLARD
That’s right.

ANDI HORVATH
How many books are in the rare books collection?

SUSAN MILLARD
We have about 250,000 items. It's pretty amazing. Shall we go in?

ANDI HORVATH
Yes.

SUSAN MILLARD
Fantastic. So here we are in the rare books area. It's pretty nice. We'll just go down to what we call the rare book room, full of books.

ANDI HORVATH
It's starting to smell really nice. I can smell the books from here.

SUSAN MILLARD
I know, I know. It's a book perfume.
This is our wonderful rare book room with wooden shelves and lots of beautiful, beautiful books.

ANDI HORVATH
And it's used by scholars, obviously, researchers and people who are interested in culture, history.

SUSAN MILLARD
Absolutely. We have a lot of researchers. We have - we also use it for teaching and learning. People don’t really come to this room unless we bring them in. You can actually order items and they go up to the third floor in the reading room. People can order anything. It's all online. People can order and look at our stuff up there, so it's really wonderful.

ANDI HORVATH
Oh, it smells good.

SUSAN MILLARD
Yes, it does.

ANDI HORVATH
Oh, if only this was…

SUSAN MILLARD
I know. You need smellevision or something.

ANDI HORVATH
Yeah, or smelleaudio in this case. Wow, look at all this gold embossing. There are a lot of old books here, but you're about to curate and open an exhibition. Tell us about that.

SUSAN MILLARD
This exhibition is called Art on the Page. It is all about the European tradition of artists making books. It's when it becomes - at the turn of the 20th century is when it becomes really modern. It's when a lot of the artists - like Matisse and Miró and all these people - became really interested in the book form and found that instead of just painting on canvasses they could just do amazing things with the book form, a lot of print work, and so it's a really interesting thing that the artist and the writers could come together and actually the artists were given as much credence, I suppose, as the words. That was a new thing. It's very modern.

ANDI HORVATH
What did these artists like Miró and Matisse do? They virtually illustrated the words. Were the words stories or poems?

SUSAN MILLARD:
Mainly poetry. It's usually poetry.

ANDI HORVATH
Mm-hm.

SUSAN MILLARD
Yes, they did. I can tell you a story actually about the Miró. The Miró is a good case in point because this is called Parler Seul. It's Tristan Tzara, who was originally Samuel Rosenstock. He was a Russian Jew. He came to Paris - as everybody did. Everybody just came to Paris. This is the big thing.

ANDI HORVATH
What decade are we talking about?

SUSAN MILLARD
Oh, '20s-ish, a bit before, some of them, but '20s was the really big time in Paris, when they all came to Paris. This particular book - because we've got slightly later books than that whole scene - this one's a 1950 book, but it was - Tzara's poems that he - during World War II - because he was Jewish, he was pretty much hunted by the Gestapo, so he was pretty upset, and he had a bad divorce.

Anyway, he ended up in a mental hospital, and he wrote these poems in the mental hospital, the poems in this book, Parler Seul. It's really - it's quite amazing because it's all about his survival and the people that are in the hospital with him and just how his whole view on - about surviving and his mental state.

Then Miró - they were friends actually. They knew each other. Miró responded to this and did these amazing gestural abstract artworks on the page with the poetry. It's an absolutely beautiful work. Our hero image that we're using is from the Miró. It is just really - it's an amazing story and it's just a beautiful work. That’s…

ANDI HORVATH
Susan, can we see the Miró illustrated book?

SUSAN MILLARD
Absolutely. Here it is. As you can see, it's bound in the European tradition, which means it's not bound.

ANDI HORVATH
It's loose.

SUSAN MILLARD
Yes.

ANDI HORVATH
It's loose pages.

SUSAN MILLARD
They're loose pages. It's pretty amazing. This was the European tradition: very beautiful paper. These are lithographs. It's a process where they use stone or - not always stone, but originally it was. They put the image on the stone and then print it from that. Every colour has to be passed through as a separate colour.

ANDI HORVATH
Miró is famous for his very aesthetic blobs that just seem to be in the right position.

SUSAN MILLARD
Yes, he's very famous for that. This is a beautiful example, Parler Seul. It's just a beautiful example of Miró's abstract placement. The placement - you can see here the placement on the page with his works and the poetry is really beautiful. This is what was really radical about these books because they merged the text and the artwork as one, whereas, before, that it was like the text and then it was illustrated so you'd have a picture. It was very conservative, but this was just like completely modernist. All the avant-garde people just got involved. It was quite amazing.

ANDI HORVATH
This was a revolution in the book world.

SUSAN MILLARD
Absolutely.

ANDI HORVATH
This happened because of the stresses of World War II. Or did it start earlier?

SUSAN MILLARD
No. It started at the turn of the century, so 20th century. The '20s in particular was just a major time in Paris. As I said, everybody went there, all the artists and writers ended up together and they were all hanging out together. It was just such a scene.

ANDI HORVATH
You know some of the goss, the gossip that happened to some of these artists and authors. What's one of your favourite stories?

SUSAN MILLARD:
[Laughs]. Look, I mean there's a whole lot of interesting things. For instance, this is Sonia Delaunay. She's absolutely fantastic. She just did so much work. She did a whole lot of fashion work and she did fashion for a lot of plays and avant-garde plays, but she also did it for the Ballet Russe. She was just major.

ANDI HORVATH
This is 1920s.

SUSAN MILLARD
Twenties, '30s and then - by the time the Second World War came along they - she ended up with a whole lot of other artists. This is like Jean Arp, Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Magnelli - and some of this is in the exhibition. There'll be eight of these on the wall. They all were in a commune together. They were all hanging out, so it was pretty amazing. They were all living together in the south of France. During the war it was difficult, of course, because she was Jewish too, Sonia Delaunay. Very difficult times for them, but they got through it. Her stuff is just absolutely…

ANDI HORVATH
Wow. This looks like really abstract…

SUSAN MILLARD
Very abstract.

ANDI HORVATH
…geometrics.

SUSAN MILLARD
Yes, yeah.

ANDI HORVATH
…and fashion and even the dresses and the settings for the dresses are geometric and abstract. Use your imagination. It's full on abstract and we're talking about a revolutionary way of illustrating books. Show us something contemporary. I saw something the other day under your arm, which was something written by Paul Kelly.

SUSAN MILLARD
Yes.

ANDI HORVATH
He's the singer songwriter.

SUSAN MILLARD
I'll show you the David Frazer. It's David Frazer and Paul Kelly. He just illustrated - David Frazer does these amazing woodcut works. He illustrated Little Aches and Pains by Paul Kelly. It's a beautiful work and very poignant and just a lovely work.

ANDI HORVATH
These are collectables as well. There's clearly a market for these rare books.

SUSAN MILLARD
Yes. Well, they are - they're rare because - in this case because they're all limited edition. That makes another - that’s another, actually, reason why things are rare. Usually, the Australian artists do about 10. Sometimes they do 15. It depends on how much they can sell really. Often they sell to institutions. Then there's a few private buyers as well. This one in particular too is…

ANDI HORVATH
What's this one?

SUSAN MILLARD
Sorry. I'll just get this up. This is called Europa to Oceania, which really is - just says it all for me for this exhibition. This is George Matoulas, Angela Cavalieri, and Antoni Jach did the poetry. It's all about the immigrant experience and their families coming over…

ANDI HORVATH
Oh, this is a bound book. Oh, with little fold-outs.

SUSAN MILLARD
Angela does all this beautiful lino cut work, and George does all this work. George bound the book too. He's a binder. Anthony just wrote all this very pithy - little bits about the immigrant experience. It's a really gorgeous book. It won the MacKay Artist Book Award. The Bodleian have just bought it.

ANDI HORVATH
Have you been purchasing stuff for the University of Melbourne Library and Archives?

SUSAN MILLARD
Yeah. Well, not the archives, because they're separate. This is just the special collections, rare books. Yeah, I have purchased a lot of the stuff going into this exhibition.

ANDI HORVATH
Must be fun shopping for rare books.

SUSAN MILLARD
It is.
[Laughter]

SUSAN MILLARD
We've got much more of a limited budget this year, but it's still good to be able to - I mean it's good that we make informed decisions about what we buy. Often that will relate to teaching and learning, so we will do a lot of classes with students, which is fantastic. We bring them in and show them the books so they can actually have that real physical experience with the items. It's always wonderful. They're always - they love it.

ANDI HORVATH
It's much better than seeing it digitised on a computer screen, to actually see the physical object.

SUSAN MILLARD
Yes, that’s really the point of it. That’s why we try and maintain these things, so that even future generations can get that - can have that experience. It's great for information to have digital, and it's good to have digital. I'm not a - it's great, but to see the physical object - we've got, for instance, a 1632 second folio for Shakespeare, for instance. When the students of - Shakespeare students come in and see that, it's like gasp. It's just lovely. It's a really - it's a great thing to be able to show them.

ANDI HORVATH
Susan, there are pillows everywhere in this store. This is what you rest the books on, right? These are like…

SUSAN MILLARD
Yeah, they're like beanbags.

ANDI HORVATH
Oh, okay.

SUSAN MILLARD
They're beanbags for the books so they can have a little snooze.

ANDI HORVATH
[Laughs].

SUSAN MILLARD
We would like to have a little snooze too on them, but that’s probably not appropriate. Seriously, it's very important to look after the spines of the books. We have these pillows so when you open a book it can rest very neatly and the spine is protected when you open things.

ANDI HORVATH
Wow.

SUSAN MILLARD
This is this David Frazer.

ANDI HORVATH
This is the Paul Kelly one.

SUSAN MILLARD
Yes.

ANDI HORVATH
Paul Kelly…

SUSAN MILLARD
It's beautiful.

ANDI HORVATH
…wrote the text, and the linocut chap - David…

SUSAN MILLARD
Yeah, linocut, woodcut chap, David Frazer, did the…

ANDI HORVATH
Amazing linocuts.

SUSAN MILLARD
Beautiful, aren’t they?

ANDI HORVATH
Yeah. The woodcuts.

SUSAN MILLARD
Woodcuts, usually. He does do big linocuts too. Actually, David Frazer is doing a print workshop for us as part of our public program. That's going to be gorgeous. He's going to come down and bring his little press and - so people can have a go at doing their own little print with his print.

ANDI HORVATH
I so want to do that.

SUSAN MILLARD
Oh, I know. It's very exciting. I've seen him do it before. It's so nice, and people love it, so we thought that'd be a nice public program to go with the exhibition.

ANDI HORVATH
I know audio is an audio medium, but the visual effect of some of these is quite profound…

SUSAN MILLARD
It is.

ANDI HORVATH
You really sink into some of his pictures.

SUSAN MILLARD
Yes, absolutely.

ANDI HORVATH
The detail is quite incredible. You must have good glasses.

SUSAN MILLARD
It is fantastic. He works from Castlemaine now. He's got his studio up there and lives up there. I just think this is really beautiful.

ANDI HORVATH
Susan - no, this is going to be a question you're going to be annoyed that I'm asking you. Are you ready? Try and take on the challenge. There's a fire. What do you grab?

SUSAN MILLARD
Oh no, don’t. Don’t ask it.

ANDI HORVATH
I have to make her choose between her babies.

SUSAN MILLARD
Look, we've always had a joke about this in heritage collections. The first thing one should grab is your accession register, all the lists of stuff that you've actually owned or ever owned, really, from a bibliographic point of view. It's really important to have those things. At the moment I've got a digitising project to actually digitise all our accession registers so we won't have to grab those.

Oh look, I don’t know. I mean how would you know - and you can't. I mean you'd grab a Gutenberg leaf, you'd grab a Breviary, probably the things that are - the manuscripts, the medieval manuscripts and stuff, because they're irreplaceable, whereas something like the Gutenberg leaf is printed so, ultimately, there is another copy in the world somewhere, so I'd be going for the…

ANDI HORVATH
What surprises have you encountered with the public when rare books become available to the public to look at, like during Rare Book Week? What surprises and misconceptions do the public have about rare books?

SUSAN MILLARD
Everybody says what a fantastic job. You get to sit here with the books all day, which is, of course, not the case because there's a lot of other admin and stuff that goes on with these jobs, but it is a privilege to work with this material. It's so beautiful. I think you have to be passionate about it to really do these jobs because they're - one of the misconceptions is it's a library.

The thing about these collections is they actually require quite specific security, much higher security, much - look, more intense environment conditions. This room is about 19 degrees. We have to keep them quite cool and in the dark. As we walked in it was in the dark. There are things that people don’t understand often about the - about looking after these collections. They think it's just like a normal library where you can schlep the things around and - but you can't - and there's a whole lot of - you're always arguing that sort of point. I think that’s probably - the biggest thing is that people think you just sit here and look at the books all day, which is - I mean we do get to look at them [laughs].

ANDI HORVATH
One thing about being in amongst the rare book collections here is that a lot of the books are huge. They're giant.

SUSAN MILLARD
Oh yeah.

ANDI HORVATH
They're really, really big. They're like the size of your photocopier glass.

SUSAN MILLARD
Oh, for sure. There's a lot of giant folios here. Then we've got elephant folios all over here, which - like Gould's Birds of Australia and Mammals of Australia. They are magnificent; full sets of those and they're gorgeous. Having stuff like that - and getting those out and showing people. They always gasp. It's just lovely. It's lovely to show those things to people. I really enjoy that actually, showing people the material. That’s one of the really - real joys of the job actually.

ANDI HORVATH
What will you be pointing out in your exhibition, Art on the Page, when your mum comes in? What are you going to drag her over to first?

SUSAN MILLARD
Probably the Miró, to be honest. Miró's Tzara, because that is just…

ANDI HORVATH
It is beautiful.

SUSAN MILLARD
It is beautiful, and it's my - probably one of my favourite items really. I really love this Matisse, Charles d'Orleans as well because that’s a gorgeous story too. It's just lovely.

ANDI HORVATH
Tell us about Henri Matisse.

SUSAN MILLARD
This Matisse is - I think it's one of the last books he did. I think it's the last book he did actually. He was - he had an operation and ended up in hospital. He was - while he was recuperating he read all the poetry of Charles d'Orleans and he - this Charles - he was captured by the British. He's French. He was captured by the British in the Battle of Agincourt in the 1400s and was actually a prisoner for 20 years or so, and wrote all this fantastic - really playful poetry really. Matisse just fell in love with it and did this whole book based around this poetry. As you can see, he just went a bit mad and just did drawings. These were all lithographs, but this is his writing.

ANDI HORVATH
He wrote it as well.

SUSAN MILLARD
Yes, he…

ANDI HORVATH
That’s his writing.

SUSAN MILLARD
Yes, that’s all very beautiful.

ANDI HORVATH
Susan, it looks a little bit crayon-ish.

SUSAN MILLARD
Very crayon-ish.

ANDI HORVATH
I didn’t want to be rude, but it just looks a little bit like I could have done that.

SUSAN MILLARD
Yeah.

ANDI HORVATH
Have I just crossed a path with you?

SUSAN MILLARD
No, no. I mean I know this is - but he did it like that purposefully.

ANDI HORVATH
Oh, I see.

SUSAN MILLARD
The actual image - the frontispiece is going on the wall. There’ll be a lot of stuff on the wall as well in this exhibition. I know what you're saying about it, but it is really beautiful.

ANDI HORVATH
It is beautiful. I mean I wish I'd done it first because…

SUSAN MILLARD
I know, but you have to be Matisse [laughs]. That’s the whole point, I think.

ANDI HORVATH
It's really crayony.

SUSAN MILLARD
It is very crayony, isn’t it?

ANDI HORVATH
Just like he's done frames to these poetry, and then he's just gone round with a green line, then a black line, then a red line, and then a burgundy line.

SUSAN MILLARD
Yeah.

ANDI HORVATH
And made it a little bit curly.

SUSAN MILLARD
Yeah. It's all about the French thing, all the fleur-de-lis. It's cute. There's rabbits in there which I really love. I love the rabbits, but I can't find the rabbits of course.

ANDI HORVATH
It does feel special being in the presence of a Henri Matisse rabbit…

SUSAN MILLARD
Well, it is.

ANDI HORVATH
…and his handwriting.

SUSAN MILLARD
Oh god, yes.

ANDI HORVATH
There is something about the physicality here. We're on page 69 of a poem called Chanson.

SUSAN MILLARD
I know. It's just fantastic. I mean it really is a very special experience to be close to these things and in the presence of them.

ANDI HORVATH
What would you like the public to think about next time they're passing by a book shop and there's a rare book in the window? What do you want people to think next time they see something that’s a rare book?

SUSAN MILLARD
That it's an extraordinary thing and it should be preserved for future generations. It should be enjoyed and people should be able to see them and touch them and just have the experience of being with them, and to appreciate history really, I guess, is what it's about.

ANDI HORVATH
Does it represent a moment in time between an artist and an author that can never really be reproduced?

SUSAN MILLARD
Yes, actually. That’s a really good point. I suppose one of the big things about the - from the European to Australian is just the bit in the middle that I didn’t say is - Petr Herel is Czechoslovakian. He came out to Australia in 1973, but then got a job in Canberra, in the graphic investigation workshop in 1979. He was so influential. All his students came out of this particular school of - very European school of thought.

They just all went very radical and made all these fantastic amazing artist books and did a whole lot of amazing work. That really set the scene. As I said, now the Melbourne scene is quite large and there's all these people collaborating. They all get together and do works together. It is really - it's just produced this amazing level of creativity of this group of people.

ANDI HORVATH
Susan, thank you for taking us on an adventure into rare books and being here in the presence. I know we've pushed the limits of audio, but hey, we like to do that sometimes.

SUSAN MILLARD
[Laughs]. Yes, no problems. Thank you very much.

CHRIS HATZIS
Ahh, that rare book smell, unmistakable. I would imagine it has the same effect as the new car smell. Thanks to our reporter and producer Dr Andi Horvath. And thanks to our guest Susan Millard, Special Collections Librarian. The ‘Art on The Page' exhibition is on until the 14th of January 2018 at the Noel Shaw Gallery at the University of Melbourne.

Eavesdrop on Experts was made possible by the University of Melbourne. This episode was recorded on 7th July 2017. You'll find a full transcript on the Pursuit website.

Audio engineering by Arch Cuthbertson. Production assistance by Claudia Hooper.

Still curious about the world? Visit our sister podcast Up Close, which features in-depth and long-form conversations with seasoned researchers across many fields.

I’m Chris Hatzis, producer and editor. Join us again next time for another Eavesdrop on Experts.