Adrian George Feint (28 June 1894 – 25 April 1971) was an Australian artist. He worked in various media, and is noted for his bookplate designs.

Education and military service

Feint was born in

Narrandera Narrandera ( ) until around 1949 also spelled "Narandera", is a town located in the Riverina region of southern New South Wales, Australia. The town lies on the junction of the Newell and Sturt highways, adjacent to the Murrumbidgee River, and ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

. He studied at Sydney Art School from 1911 under

Julian Ashton Julian Rossi Ashton (27 January 185127 April 1942) was an English-born Australian artist and teacher. He is best known for founding the Julian Ashton Art School in Sydney and encouraging Australian painters to capture local life and scenery '' ...

and

Elioth Gruner Elioth Lauritz Leganyer Gruner (16 December 1882 – 17 October 1939) was an Australian artist. Gruner won the Wynne Prize for landscape painting seven times, the most of any Australian artist besides Hans Heysen. One of Gruner's winners of th ...

. Enlisting at age twenty one with the Australian Imperial Forces, Feint embarked for France on the 17th September 1916 from Sydney aboar
HMAT Borda A30
He served with the rank of Private with the 15th Australian Field Ambulance and on the 8th September 1918 he was given an official Recommendation for his service. Before being demobbed in 1919, he was granted three months leave to study at the Académie Julien in Paris. He studied plate etching from 1922 to 1926; woodblock-engraving from 1926 to 1928, with assistance from

Thea Proctor Thea may refer to: * Thea (name), a given name * Ancient Greek term for goddess, including an alternative spelling of Theia * ''Thea'', the former name of the tea plant genus, now included in ''Camellia'' * Thea, a village in the municipal unit Mes ...

in 1927; and oil painting beginning in 1938, with

Margaret Preston Margaret Rose Preston (29 April 1875 – 28 May 1963) was an Australian painter and printmaker who is regarded as one of Australia's leading modern art, modernists of the early 20th century. In her quest to foster an Australian "national art", ...

. That year he joined and exhibited with

Robert Menzies The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory ...

' anti-modernist foundation, the

Australian Academy of Art The Australian Academy of Art was a conservative Australian government-authorised art organisation which operated for ten years between 1937 and 1946 and staged annual exhibitions. Its demise resulted from opposition by Modernist artists, especiall ...

, of which Proctor and Preston were also members.

Artwork

He was co-director (with bookbinder Wal Taylor) and manager o
Grosvenor Gallery
219 George Street Sydney, from 1924–28. Exhibitors included the now-famous

Roland Wakelin Roland Wakelin (17 April 1887 – 28 May 1971) was a New Zealand-born Australian painter and teacher. Early life Roland Shakespeare Wakelin was born on 17 April 1887 in Greytown, New Zealand. He studied at Wellington Technical School from 190 ...

Roy De Maistre Roy De Maistre CBE (27 March 18941 March 1968) was an Australian artist of international fame. He is renowned in Australian art for his early experimentation with "colour-music", and is recognised as the first Australian artist to use pure abs ...

and

George Washington Lambert George Washington Thomas Lambert (13 September 1873 – 29 May 1930) was an Australian artist, known principally for portrait painting and as a war artist during the First World War. Early life Lambert was born in St Petersburg, Russia, th ...

. He was employed as assistant editor (to Sydney Ure Smith) of ''Art in Australia'' from 1928–40, contributing many cover illustrations to this and filling many commissions for his advertising agency Smith and Julius. Between 1927 and 1939, Feint made 18 covers for Ure Smith's magazine ''

The Home ''The Home'' was a high quality Australian quarterly magazine published in Sydney, New South Wales between 1920 and 1942. It became bimonthly from July/August 1924. Then from 1926 onwards it was published monthly until it ceased publication ...

'', including the famous illustration on the October 1928 issue in collaboration with Hera Roberts. He abandoned graphic arts around 1939 (he reworked one bookplate in 1944) to work as a bookbinder with Benjamin Waite and to illustrate limited edition books.

Flower Paintings

In 1939 an exhibition of Feint's oil paintings and sketches at the Grosvenor Galleries served as an introduction to a new phase in his artistic career. The exhibition noted the crossover from woodcuts and drawings to oils. A newspaper review of the time referred to the imaginative realisation of hibiscus and lantana, the overwhelming opulence of colour, “saved from coarseness by the exquisite delicacy of the textures.” In the same year Feint was selected to paint a large mural for the Australian Pavilion at the

New Zealand Centennial Exhibition The New Zealand Centennial Exhibition took place over six months from Wednesday 8 November 1939 until 4 May 1940. It celebrated one hundred years since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 and the subsequent mass European settlement of ...

in Wellington. Feint produced his design of Australian birds, accompanied by other prominent artists Frank Hinder, Douglas Annand, and William Dobell. Feint's still life and landscapes, painted in the English decorative style, received critical acclaim through the 1940s and 1950s. This creativity was brought into focus with
Adrian Feint: flower paintings
', edited and published by Sydney Ure Smith in 1948. Galleries across Australia hold examples of Feint's work, including many still lif
flower paintings
produced during these decades. The Art Gallery of New South Wales holds forty five of his works, including a number of his floral depictions displaying almost surreal images of refined floral pieces combined with hand-made objects.�
Flowers in Sunlight
�� exemplifies such a work. A contemporary of Feint, the artis
Douglas Dundas
described his works as ‘flower arrangements, meticulously designed, superbly painted, and set in a related environment of time and space.’ Feint's devotion and developing expertise in floral painting led to the distinction of having a camelia named after him in 1952
C. japonica ‘Adrian Feint
’ The large white striped semi-double was created by Professor E.G. Waterhouse, and Feint's paintings can be found in titles authored by Waterhouse
The Camellia Quest
and the Camellia Trail.

Sydney and Surrounds

Living and working in Sydney allowed Faint to explore the harbour and its surrounding foreshores. Apart from his interest in floral painting, Feint's work during the 1940s displayed his interest in the Australian coastal scene
Afternoon Collaroy
1940, allows the viewer to look through a finely depicted tree to the beach beyond; the waves rolling towards bathers walking across the sand. Add to this the sun hat and the beach towel casually draped over a railing sets the mood for this afternoon at the beach
The Jetties, Palm Beach
1942, a scene viewed through intricately entwined branches an
Elizabeth Bay, Sydney
1942, quite likely painted from Feint's own residence in Elizabeth Bay, the suburb he would live in for the rest of his life. The playfu
Tim and Pigeon
1944, must surely also have been painted from Elizabeth Bay
Palm Beach
1945, invites the viewer to an idyllic holiday scene through the depiction of protected ocean baths, tents, and caravans. For artists in any field, a successful career required patrons and favourable social connections. Feint's star must have been in the ascendant for his portrait to be included in the work of photographer Alec Murray. His volume
The Alec Murray Album
showcases the elegant and the beautiful in their own private world.

Post War Commissions

By the end of World War II, Feint could justifiably lay claim to a number of titles; gallery director, bookplate designer, printmaker, illustrator, commercial artist, and painter. After downing his bookplate engraving tools, Feint turned his talents to a number of high profile commercial projects. The Orient Steam Navigation Company were re-fitting their ocean liner

RMS Orion RMS ''Orion'' was an ocean liner launched by the Orient Steam Navigation Company in 1934 and retired from the water in 1963 after carrying about 500,000 passengers. A 23,371 ton passenger ship, the Orion was built to carry 486 first class, 653 t ...

to resume service between Britain and Australia having served as an armed merchantman during the war. As reported in two local newspapers, “the Australian artist Mr Adrian Feint, of Elizabeth Bay, has been commissioned to paint the liner Orion's dining saloon decorations.” Feint would paint two scenes for the saloon, a landscape and the other a seascape. The paintings, “which took two months to complete, will be flown to London and hung in the ship." One of the many activities planned for the tour of Australia by Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh in 1954 was a Royal Gala Performance. Feint's design was “selected for the cover of the Royal Gala Performance” at the Tivoli Theatre on the 6th of February. The eight pag
booklet
with its lyrebird cover was published by the Organising Committee for the Royal Gala Performance.

Bookplates

Feint's bookplates are regarded by many as his greatest legacy.

Dorothea Mackellar Isobel Marion Dorothea Mackellar, (1 July 1885 – 14 January 1968) was an Australian poet and fiction writer. Her poem ''My Country'' is widely known in Australia, especially its second stanza, which begins: "''I love a sunburnt country/ ...

Ethel Turner Ethel Turner (24 January 1870 – 8 April 1958) was an English-born Australian novelist and children's literature writer. Life She was born Ethel Mary Burwell in Doncaster in England. Her father died when she was two, leaving her mother Sarah J ...

, Ethel Curlewis, John Lane Mullins,

Frank Clune Francis Patrick Clune, OBE, (27 November 189311 March 1971) was a best-selling Australian writer, travel writer and popular historian. Early life and career Clune was born in Liverpool Street, Darlinghurst, Sydney in 1893, and grew up in Redf ...

Peter Tansey
and th
Duke and Duchess of York
were among those who commissioned personal ''ex libris'' plates. In 1930 his bookplate designs were recognised by an exhibition at the Division of Fine Arts,

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

, Washington US (organised by th
American Society of Bookplate Collectors and Designers
, and in 1933 were highlights of the first International Exhibition of Bookplates held in Sydney. They are prized by collectors such as members of the American Society of Bookplate Collectors and Designers and the New Australian Bookplate Collectors Society. According to the checklist compiled b
Thelma Clune
he produced 221 commissioned bookplates. Apart from

Norman Lindsay Norman Alfred William Lindsay (22 February 1879 – 21 November 1969) was an Australian artist, etcher, sculptor, writer, art critic, novelist, cartoonist and amateur boxer. One of the most prolific and popular Australian artists of his genera ...

, the only other Australian artist whose bookplates command anywhere the same interest i
G. D. Perrottet

Legacy and Death

At the time of his death in 1971, the Sydney Morning Herald described Feint as an artist “noted for his still life and flower pieces,” commenting that his works are shown in public and private galleries across Australia. The 2009 publication
Adrian Feint: Cornucopia
'' reveals a continuing interest in Feints’ oil paintings and reasserts his contribution to Australian art. File:Adrian Feint Bookplate-Tonys Book.jpg, alt=A red, yellow, and green image of a fish, "Tony's Book" File:Adrian Feint Bookplate-David Robertson.jpg, alt=A black and white image of a window, David Robertson File:Adrian Feint Bookplate-Bertram Norris.jpg, alt=A black and white image of shield, Bertram Norris File:Adrian Feint Bookplate-MI Humphries.jpg, alt=A monochromatic brown image of a cherebum fountain, M. I. Humphries File:Adrian Feint Bookplate-Dorothea MacKellar.jpg, alt=A monochromatic blue image of a centaur, Dorothea MacKellar

Awards and memberships

Feint was elected to the Society of Artists, and was a member of the Australian Painter-Etchers Society.

Awards

Bookplate Association International
first prize 1930 fo
Raoul Lempriere
bookplate *John Lane Mullins woodcut prize 1933 *George FitzPatrick 'Typical Australian woodcut' prize 1933 *His portrait, by

Nora Heysen Nora Heysen (11 January 1911 – 30 December 2003) was an Australian artist, the first woman to win the prestigious Archibald Prize in 1938 for portraiture and the first Australian woman appointed as an official war artist. Early years Heyse ...

, hangs in the National Library, Canberra.

Exhibitions

An extensive exhibition of his work, including many privately-owned examples, was mounted between March and June 2018 at

Carrick Hill Carrick Hill is a publicly accessible historic property at the foot of the Adelaide Hills, in the suburb of Springfield, in South Australia. It was the Adelaide home of Sir Edward "Bill" Hayward and his wife Ursula (née Barr-Smith), and con ...

, whose previous owner was a generous patron of Australian art, Feint being a particular friend.

References

External links

Bookplates by Adrian Feint
in the University of Delaware Library'
William Augustus Brewer Bookplate Collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Feint, Adrian 1894 births 1971 deaths Australian etchers Bookplate designers People from New South Wales 20th-century Australian painters 20th-century Australian male artists 20th-century printmakers Julian Ashton Art School alumni Australian male painters