Christian Yandell - Australia's latter day Pre-Raphaelite

Christian Yandell, Prince Waratah and his team of kingfishers, coloured plate, Australian Fairy Tales, 1925.

Contents

Introduction
Alice in Wonderland
Australian Fairy Tales
Peter Pan and Wendy
Pre-Raphaelite Wonderland
Chronology
References

----------------------

1. Introduction

The following is a collection of the present author's writings on the Melbourne-born artist Christian Marjorie Emily Carlyle Yandell / Waller (2 August 1894 - 25 May 1954). Her art comprised watercolours, oils, prints and stained glass. Her work also appeared in a number of publications. It was distinguished by its connection to the British Pre-Raphaelite movement of the 1860s. The comprehensive reference list below includes a variety of material which discusses her work and provides some historical context to its creation. This article does not claim to be in any way comprehensive or a survey of Yandell's art. Though she is commonly known by her married name Waller, her birth name Yandell is prioritised herein.

----------------------

2. Whitcombe's Alice in Wonderland 1924

The first version of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (1865) to be illustrated by an Australian artist was the Whitcombe's Story Book edition published in New Zealand and Australia in numerous editions between 1924 and 1960. The illustrator was the young, talented Melbournian, Christian Yandell, whose Pre-Raphaelite line drawings were a distinctive feature of the book. This abbreviated edition of Carroll's famous Wonderland fantasy adventure is rare, and for a number of reasons. Firstly, by their very nature school readers are ephemeral, with a short and tough life. They were generally printed in large numbers on low quality paper with stapled bindings and used by primary and secondary school students until the point of destruction. Very rarely did a school reader find a home in a library or archive, and likewise they were not readily available for purchase through normal bookstores. This helps explain the fact that there is no known copy in a public collection of an original 1924 edition of the Whitcombe Alice, or of the second 1925 edition. Many of the extant copies show signs of usage in the classroom and wear such as ink blots, pencil, paint and colour marks, and torn pages or loose bindings. This article outlines some of the history of the edition, with information primarily gleaned from Ian F. McLean's 1984 bibliographic survey of the Whitcombe Story Books series, along with various rare book websites and library catalogue entries. McLean had access to original records from the Whitcombe & Tombs archive in compiling his list. A detailed discussion of the Christian Yandell illustrations is to be found in Organ (2015). The book is also referred to in a survey of Australian editions of Alice in Wonderland (Organ 2013).

Bibliographic Description - Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, Whitcombe's Story Book No.415, Whitcombe & Tombes, Christchurch, 1924, 64p (68p). Illustrated front cover by the Carlton Studio and throughout the text by Christian Yandell in black and white line drawings. The book was edited by E.A. Stewart who received a fee of £4.4.0 on 6 July 1923. No information is available in regards to the figure paid to the illustrators. On the last page there is a "Note on the author" and in later editions also a quiz for students. The various editions which appeared between 1924 (1st) and 1960 (9th) include advertisements for other Whitcombe publications. Each edition is distinguished by a printer's job reference number on the final page, adjacent to the rear cover.

---------------------

3. Hume Cook's Australian Fairy Tales 1925

Christian Yandell was a young Victorian artist with a prodigious talent for drawing which saw her gaining work in the field of book illustration during the 1920s and stain glass window design and production later in life (Thomas 1992). The illustrations in Australian Fairy Tales are some of her finest, and more refined then those seen in the 1926 publication The Adventurous Elves: An Authoritative Fairy Story (Patten 1926). Australian Fairy Tales reproduces nineteen of Yandell's works, based on original drawings in black ink and watercolours. They are as follows:

The wedding of Prince Waratah and Princess Wattle Blossum. Dust jacket, colour printed letterpress from process blocks. Also reproduced as tipped in plate #5 (refer below).
Australian Fairy Tales / Prince Waratah on his flying carriage / Hume Cook. Cover engraving in blue ink on cloth. The image of Prince Waratah is a reverse monochrome of the tipped in colour plate #1 (refer below).
Prince Waratah on his flying carriage. Tipped in colour plate #1, printed letterpress from process blocks. Facing the title page. Reproduced in reverse on the cover of the book (2).
Title page. Black link engravings and fonts, letterpress print from blocks (3).
A Water Fairy. Full page, black and white letterpress print from line block (11).
A Forest Fairy. Full page, black and white letterpress print from line block (15).
"To his intense astonishment it came easily out of the ground." Full page, black and white letterpress print from line block (19).
A Desert Fairy. Full page, black and white letterpress print from line block (25).
"The Shower Fairies arrived and, with their pellet-like raindrops beat the sand particles down." Tipped in colour plate #2, printed letterpress from process blocks (33).
"Instantly the fountain began to play." Full page, black and white letterpress print from line block (43).
"To see the city at its best, it must be viewed at night." Tipped in colour plate #3, colour printed letterpress from process blocks (49).
A Flower Fairy. Full page, black and white letterpress print from line block (55).
"He vowed to himself that never in all his life had he seen anyone so gloriously beautiful and charming." Full page, black and white letterpress print from line block (63).
"They suddenly rushed from their hiding places and started pushing and dragging her over the sandy desert." Tipped in colour plate #4, printed letterpress from process blocks (75).
"Together they mounted the steps and stood before the 'Official Recorder.'" Tipped in colour plate #5, printed letterpress from process blocks (85).
Touch tells a story. Full page, black and white letterpress print from line block (89).
A Rain Fairy. Full page, black and white letterpress print from line block (99).
"King Acacia placed upon his head a splendid crown." Full page, black and white letterpress print from line block (113).
"They, the children of the sky..... to the Moon, their mother, came one happy summer night." Full page, black and white letterpress print from line block (119).
"The Mower and his lady met the Queen." Tipped in colour plate #6, printed letterpress from process blocks (131).

It is evident from these drawing that Yandell took much inspiration from the work of the British Pre-Raphaelite artists and Arthurian subjects. The high quality production values of Australian Fairy Tales meant that her many fine line drawings could be displayed in detail as a letterpress block printing process was used for the black a white works. The colour plates were less successful. They lack detail, the colour is washed out and muted. They fail to reproduce the vibrancy of the original works in watercolour, as evidenced by paintings such as Mythological scene, 1923. This was due to the limited colour reproduction facilities available to the printer. It is the one major criticism of the production.

Christian Yandell, Mythological scene, gouache, 25 x 24.5 cm, 1923.

The Pre-Raphaelites were distinguished by fine detail, a preference for the medieval, and the use of bright colours. The first two elements are evident in abundance within Australian Fairy Tales, though the latter is not consistently applied to the tipped-in plates. Despite ambiguity over what is, and what is not, a fairy tale, there is no doubt that Hume Cook's Australian Fairy Tales is what it says it is, i.e. Australian fairy tales. It is, in fact, both a single fairy tale and a collection of fairy stories, The setting is Australian, though the tone, language and tradition is English. This is also evident in Christian Yandell's artwork, wherein she presents the main characters in a medieval style, similar to the royal court of King Arthur, though with Australian flourishes. Yandell was influenced by the British Pre-Raphaelite artists who looked to the detailed art and craft of the Arthurian legends for inspiration. Her work for Australian Fairy Tales also drew inspiration from the fine line drawings of British artist Henry Justice Ford who illustrated many of the Andrew Lang series of coloured fairy books published in London between 1889-1910 (Hines 2010, Menges 2010). Yandell's illustrations to Australian Fairy Tales were a perfect fit for the words of Hume Cook and the subject of faery. Whilst present-day audiences may baulk at the medieval / Pre-Raphaelite / Arthurian elements purporting to be local in Australian Fairy Tales, the contemporary reception for the book was generally warm and made no comment in regards to this disconnect or foreignness.

----------------------

4. Peter Pan and Wendy c.1925.

Around 1925 the Melbourne-based Educational Supply Company published a copy of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan and Wendy, for use in schools. It was edited from the original by Florence E. Tweddell and illustrated by Christian Yandell in fine, black and white line drawings. These were typical of the time and similar to others such as those by fellow Victorian Ida Rantoul Outhwaite..

Books such as these are rare as they were subject to heavy use by students and not always available for purchase in normal bookshops. Yandell is not listed in the title page and therefore library cataloguing of the work often excluded reference to her in such cases.

----------------------

5. Pre-Raphaelite Wonderland

The following text is taken from the author's 2015 refereed journal article Pre-Raphaelite Wonderland - Christian Yandell's Alice, published in Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian and New Zealand Literature. It presents an overview of Yandell's work in the Whitcombe's edition of Alice in Wonderland.

Revolution in Paint and Pen

The nineteenth century was a time of revolutionary change in Britain - industrial, scientific, social and cultural upheaval drove the heart of Empire to seek out the new and challenge the old. Within the arts, J. M. W. Turner’s impressionistic renderings of steam trains and retiring Trafalgar-era gunships turned a century-long tradition of landscape painting on its head and at the same time proclaimed British art a world leader. Less revolutionary in technique, though more so in word and deed, was a group of young radical London-based artists who appeared mid-century, united in rebellion against Royal Academy training and the artistic traditions of their birth. Calling themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, they sought to replicate nature’s realism in a framework of contemporary, medieval, and high-literary subjects (Parris). Prominent members included Ford Maddox Brown, William Holman Hunt, Elisabeth Eleanor Siddall, Edward Burne-Jones, child prodigy Charles Everett Millais, poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and print maker, writer, and prominent socialist William Morris.

Casting aside the in-vogue Academy style, the Brotherhood announced the arrival of a new art based on the imagination; overtly Romantic, it reflected the horror and ecstasy of dreams, life and death, good and evil, mythology and alchemy, passion and love, with the latter both won and lost. One commentator on Pre-Raphaelite art described it as an interesting mix of “concern for the moral issues of modern life” alongside a celebration of “the technical virtues of medieval art and the romantic appeal of medieval history” (Wilton 157–59). The movement gave rise to intensely realistic, brilliantly coloured works laden with symbolic elements. Out-of-doors en plein air painting was also promoted - a radical idea at the time - and the beauty of nature and humanity was presented in magical, often mythical settings.

Exhibited Pre-Raphaelite works stood out from the muted tones and soft lines of those done in traditional and Academy styles. Though the Brotherhood was short-lived, forming in 1848 as revolution swept through Europe and dissipating during the 1860s, its influence was profound and ongoing. This was evidenced by the subsequent rise of Symbolist art throughout Europe from the 1870s through to the 1910s, and a continuing interest in, and replication of, works in the Pre-Raphaelite manner (Clare). This late nineteenth century child of Romanticism and the Pre-Raphaelites rejected science, logic, and the industrial revolution for a romanticized art and literature based on inner contemplation, spiritualism, and a deeper understanding of one’s place in the natural world. Both movements saw artists embracing the medieval, including Arthurian legend with their tales of gallant knights coming to the aid of virtuous women, reflecting their own search for meaning in the industrialized age (Cheney). The Bible was an equally rich source for stories and moral guidance.

Impressionism is usually presented as the most influential art movement of the second half of the nineteenth century. However, Symbolist art was equally as revolutionary and more internationally dominant, with adherents such as Francisco de Goya, Eugene Delacroix, Edvard Munch, and Aubrey Beardsley adopting its philosophical constructs and fantastical content. Pinning these art movements down and unravelling their spider web-like network of connections is difficult more than a century later. The lines are now blurred, for example, between Pre-Raphaelitism, Symbolism, and Art Nouveau, despite their spatial separations. Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century artists took what they liked from what was on offer or had come before. The melding of Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist methods and motifs was an easy task for those not especially attracted to Impressionism or modernist trends.

The formation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood had coincided with the mid-century blossoming and democratization of photography, giving rise to more photographers and a greater variety of subjects. The “Pre-Raphaelite lens” mirrored many of the Brotherhood’s achievements in paint, print, pen, and watercolour (Waggoner). One of the most talented exponents of the camera at the time, and a close friend of key members including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was Charles Dodgson. Using the alias Lewis Carroll, he published Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1872). They were both revolutionary works of juvenile fantasy fiction. Their appearance at the far end of Pre-Raphaelitism may suggest a disconnect from the aims and objectives of the Brotherhood, and Dodgson’s Wonderland, with its strangely timeless and decidedly unrealistic world of talking plants and animals, was in many ways the very antithesis of Pre-Raphaelitism. Likewise, the Tenniel drawings, which graced the original publications and became intimately connected with them, belong to the Punch world of black-and-white political cartoons. They cannot be said to reflect the rarefied air or brightly detailed colouring of John Everett Millais’s Ophelia or one of the numerous portraits of Rossetti’s muse Jane Morris (Mancoff). As a result, the two Alice books have generally not been considered Pre-Raphaelite in the voluminous and ongoing critique of Carroll’s work. For contemporary readers in Victorian England, Alice in Wonderland was far removed from the hyper-realistic and medieval canvases of Millais, Holman-Hunt, and Rossetti. However, what may once have appeared a clear disconnect is now less so due to a better understanding of the context and conduct of the Pre-Raphaelites.

Connections between the Victorian novel and Pre-Raphaelitism have been highlighted, and neo-Victorian novels with Pre-Raphaelite motifs have also appeared (Honnighausen; Windling; Andres; Fox). A natural affinity exists between fantasy writers and the magic and myth evident in Pre-Raphaelite art, continuing to the present day with, for example, the Middle Earth art of Alan Lee and its subsequent expression in the Peter Jackson films of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings saga (French; Walker). Both Carroll’s Wonderland and the Pre-Raphaelites now appear to represent a manifestation of the dreamlike idyll sought by English artists and writers during a time of change and insecurity. The connection may not have been highlighted at the time of original publication, but more than half a century later, and in a place on the other side of the globe, it was.

A Narrative Art

In 1923, young Australian artist Christian Yandell (1894–1954) applied a Pre-Raphaelite pen to the task of illustrating Alice in Wonderland (1924). A latecomer to the Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist worlds of myth and legend, Yandell’s work from the 1910s through to the 1930s strongly reflected both, with theosophical underpinnings eventually dominating (Harris; Roe; McFarlane; Sarmiala-Berger; Nunn). Like Pre-Raphaelitism, Yandell’s was a narrative art, embedded in stories and telling their own. Intelligent, mythological, spiritual, dreamy, and mystical, it was less a reflection of Melbourne in 1923 than London in 1865. As she approached her twentieth year, Yandell either sought, or accepted, a commission to illustrate an abbreviated version of Alice in Wonderland for the New Zealand-based publishing house Whitcombe and Tombs. There would be no leather bound, profusely illustrated quarto tome arising from this contract, but merely a small, cheaply produced school reader for ages nine to ten. Despite the edition’s patrician origins and nondescript cover design, interspersed within the pages was a small collection of drawings that paid homage to the Pre-Raphaelites. Finely detailed and reflecting as much as possible a natural reality in the unnatural Wonderland, Yandell’s work added a new dimension to the telling of this by then well-known story.

The artist’s delayed adoption of Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist technique and imagery was in many ways inexplicable for a young Australian. However, it reflected the British cultural matrix transplanted to her home state of Victoria as a result of waves of migration, beginning with the arrival of the First Fleet of convicts, soldiers, and free settlers at Sydney - "Botany Bay" - in 1788. By the time Yandell was born in 1894, significant Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist artworks had found their way onto the walls of a large number of Australian public galleries, in an orgy of acquisition driven by a mixture of patriotic fervour and taste (Trumble, Love & Death). For example, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1876 acquired Ford Maddox Brown’s monumental Chaucer at the Court of Edward III (1847–1851). These works continued to arrive in the opening decades of the new century, following the death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 and the arrival of an Australian constitution with Federation that same year. Prominently displayed in institutions such as the National Gallery of Victoria and Art Gallery of New South Wales, they had an impact upon Yandell when, as a young National Gallery of Victoria Art School student in 1910, she first moved to Melbourne to study. At a time when Modernism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Fauvism, and a variety of other “-isms” were appearing, and despite the local achievements of the Heidelberg School artists in the area of landscape, Yandell’s work was decidedly distinct and disconnected from many modernist trends.

Her most obvious influences were the Pre-Raphaelites Rossetti, Millais, and Burne Jones, alongside Symbolist graphic artist Aubrey Beardsley and Australian practitioners in black and white such as Norman Lindsay. Yandell’s few paintings in oil and watercolour from this period displayed a strong literary sense and included medieval elements - as did the Pre-Raphaelites - most notably her portraits in paint and print of Morgan Le Fay, a powerful sorceress of Arthurian legend.

Antipodean connections with the Brotherhood are ephemeral: the brief, twenty-month residence on the Victorian goldfields between 1852–1854 of sculptor Thomas Woolner and subsequent commissions following his return to England (Verrocchio; Neale); the mid-century immigration of two sisters and a brother of William Holman Hunt (Hudson); and Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s infatuation with exotic animals, including Australian kangaroos, wallabies and, most famously of all, wombats - all kept in lively captivity at his small Chelsea zoological garden (Trumble, “Rosetti’s Wombat”). More generally, the Pre-Raphaelites had featured in discussions within the arts section of local newspapers since the early 1850s, these mostly being extracts from London reports. In February 1861, a public subscription for an engraved print copy of Holman Hunt’s Light of the World portrait of Jesus Christ was got up in Sydney, though “Savoir Faire” in a letter to the editor later that year, called the Pre-Raphaelite style “bad” and the final engraving “un-picturesque.”

The bringing together in 1924 of Lewis Carroll and the Pre-Raphaelites in the quaint Whitcombe’s Story Books edition of Alice in Wonderland reveals the evolution of an interesting synthesis of British and Australian art in the years since the 1860s. During the course of the twentieth century, the close cultural and familial links between Empire and colony would disappear and an indigenous Australian art flourished. Locally born artists such as Christian Yandell would find their own path, taking from an array of influences and images to create something new. The Alice drawings are testament to a richness of tradition from which the young Melbourne-based artist could draw.

The book

The 1924 edition of Alice in Wonderland issued by Whitcombe and Tombs for the Australasian education market was a nondescript, sixty-four-page primary school reader. Edited by E. A. Stewart, it featured an original cover design by the Carlton Studio of Melbourne, plus twelve black-and-white engraved line drawings by Christian Yandell. Intended “for children aged 9 to 10 years,” it was number 415 in the Whitcombe’s Story Books series and marked the first illustration of Alice in Wonderland by an Australian artist. Nine editions appeared through to 1960, with the majority printed in Christchurch. No extant copy of the original 1924 edition is known to have survived, though the print run numbered 10,000 and by 1960, when the last edition appeared, some 74,770 had been issued. The ephemeral nature of school readers and associated curriculum materials meant they did not usually find their way into public or private collections. Often printed on low-quality paper with simple cardboard covers and glued, stapled, or single-stitch bindings, similar to modern, mass-market paperbacks, they were discarded by children and educational institutions after heavy use in the classroom and home. The present day rarity of school readers is, in addition, the result of their limited availability for purchase in non-specialist bookshops at the time of release. Illustrations within, especially black-and-white line drawings, were in many instances roughly coloured by their young owners, further degrading the school reader’s value as a collectible and affecting the likelihood of preservation.

For the Whitcombe and Tombs edition of Alice in Wonderland, the thickly textured cover image was in stark contrast to Yandell’s fine line drawings within. The cover depicted, below a large banner title, the disembodied head of a Cheshire Cat looking down upon a Mock Turtle and Gryphon dancing by the seashore. For those surviving copies, the use of coarse brown paper and dark inks created an indistinct and confused image that tended to mask the quality of the illustrations within. Yandell’s drawings, apart from being the first, are also perhaps the finest by an Australian artist on this subject for more than half a century. Their failure to appear in a publication of higher quality, and never having subsequently been reproduced, apart from a single instance of the “Drink me” vignette included in the Alice 125 exhibition catalogue (Paull), adds to the mystery surrounding this little-known artist’s work. Though a solo retrospective exhibition has been mounted, with fully illustrated catalogue, Yandell usually receives only a passing mention, if at all, in surveys of Australian art and art history (Draffin; Holden; Hylton; Nunn; O’Conor; Do Rozario).

The artist

During her lifetime Yandell - who married fellow artist Mervyn Napier Waller in 1915 and after 1930 went by the name Christian Waller - worked with distinction in book illustration, book plate and print design and the creation of large stained-glass windows for churches in her native Victoria and nearby New South Wales (Waller; Young; Westhoven; Frankston City Council). She was adept in line drawing with pencil, in the use of watercolour and oil, and in the preparation of linocuts and other printing techniques. The Alice in Wonderland line drawings are in many ways typical of her early work, revealing the aforementioned pre-Raphaelite influences that later developed with the inclusion of esoteric, theosophical, occult, and mystical symbolism, alongside elements of Egyptology and Arthurian legend.

Yandell was both a unique talent and an artist of her time. Black-and-white art evolved to a high level of expertise in Australia during the final decades of the nineteenth century. Magazines such as The Bulletin and book illustration for indigenous product such as The Adventures of Blinky Bill provided work for talented artists such as the Lindsay brothers, Norman and Lionel. Yandell was involved in a number of book projects during the 1920s, most notably illustrating E. J. Atkinson’s poem The Renegades (1921), T. J. Symons’s Tales from Far and Near (1920s), Hume Cook’s Australian Fairy Tales (1925), Lillian Paten May’s The Adventurous Elves (1926), and J. M. Stevens’s The Mad Painter (1926). These works reflect elements of Christian’s life and times: the vampish “Roaring Twenties” that were a reaction to the horrors of World War I; the artist’s own training at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School; international art movements and artists; and life in her native Victoria and the city of Melbourne. They also reveal an interest in fantastical worlds of fiction and imagination.

Following this flourish of activity in the public eye throughout the 1920s as a commercial artist, book illustrator, and exhibitor, during the early thirties Yandell became reclusive and worked on the compilation of a collection of her theosophical prints in book form, most notably with The Great-Breath : A Book of Seven Designs (1932) and, from the same year, the stalled The Gates of Dawn (eventually published in 1977). This was followed by a rather eventful period in her private life during the late thirties when she separated from her husband and had a brief sojourn in the United States as a member of a quasi-religious cult. Upon her return to Australia and reconciliation with her husband, Yandell concentrated on the design and installation of stained-glass windows, working in this field until her death in 1954. As a result her own art is little known, despite the work of Roger Butler and David Thomas since 1978 in both exhibiting and commenting upon her drawings, prints, and mosaics (Butler; Deutscher; Thomas). Yandell has been immortalized in a large portrait in oil taken by her more famous husband, which now forms part of the collection of the National Gallery of Australia. Unfortunately, she produced no such equivalent, and her most spectacular work - large church mosaics - cannot be exhibited and are therefore rarely seen apart from by local parishioners.

The Illustrations

Twelve of Yandell’s drawings were printed in the Whitcombe & Tombs Alice in Wonderland, with the majority titled:

1. “. . . and last of all this grand procession, came the King and Queen” - facing the title page
2. [Drink me] - page 8
3. “It was the White Rabbit” - page 10
4. “The Dodo solemnly presented the thimble.” - page 15
5. “There goes Bill!” - page 20
6. “Her eyes immediately met those of a large blue caterpillar.” - page 21
7. “The Duchess was sitting on a stool, nursing the baby.” - page 26
8. “It had turned into a pig.” - page 28
9. “The table was a large one, set for a great many people.” - page 31
10. “The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in manageing her flamingo.” - page 41
11. “Broken only by the sobbing of the Mock Turtle.” - page 49
12. “The Knave was standing before them.” - page 59

The model for Christian’s Alice was her niece Klytie Pate. Born in 1912, she was eleven at the time her aunt made the initial Alice sketches. Two years later - in 1925 - Klytie came to live with the Wallers following her father’s divorce. She later pursued the art of pottery with distinction in Australia and became a champion of her aunt’s work following Christian’s untimely death in 1954. Klytie’s youth, slender figure, and distinctive facial features made her an ideal subject for a slightly more mature Alice than the original seven-year-old portrayed in Tenniel’s engravings. Yandell’s drawings are an eclectic mix, ranging from depictions of the iconic Mad Hatter’s Tea Party through to densely drawn processional scenes and simple sketches of Wonderland’s inhabitants. These reveal her to be strong in landscape, design, and the depiction of animals, but less so the human form, though we know from extant pencil sketches that her life drawing was sound.

The Alice sketches range in size from two vignettes through to four half-page and six full-page engravings. A number are highly detailed, such as the title page print and the one featuring the hookah-smoking caterpillar on the mushroom (21), whilst others are simple in both line and subject matter. Some pay homage to John Tenniel’s original engravings from 1865, including “The Dodo solemnly presented the thimble” (15) and “Broken only by the sobbing of the Mock Turtle” (49) - though many are distinctly the work of Yandell, notably “The Queen’s Croquet-ground “ (41). Yandell’s Alice varies both in size (as she does in the book) and facial features, and as a consequence her age in the drawings is not easy to determine - ranging anywhere from eight to eighteen.

Yandell’s reason for taking on the task of illustrating a school reader remains a mystery. It may have been purely mercenary, or perhaps she considered it a worthy endeavour as a number of well-known Australian artists also worked on the Whitcombe’s Story Books series, including Ida Rentoul Outhwaite and May Gibbs (Griffith; McLaren and Griffith). What, in particular, drew Yandell to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland? Perhaps it was the ephemeral connection between Carroll and the Pre-Raphaelites, and most especially Rossetti. His unfinished Dantis Amor (1859–60), with its golden stars upon a Prussian Blue sky and solitary angel-like central figure is a template for many of her linocuts and stained-glass designs. It is one of many obvious links between Rossetti’s art and Yandell’s. The work of any artist is the sum of many parts, many experiences, many influences. Christian Yandell is no different, and barring the discovery of writings on these subjects by her explaining the rationale behind the Alice drawings, such questions must remain unanswered, and the artist a continuing footnote in the artistic and literary history of Australia.

----------------------

Napier Waller, Christian Yandell and her dogs, Fairy Hills, 1932.

6. Chronology

* 1894 - Christian Yandell born, daughter of Mr. W. Yandell, plasterer of Forest Street, Castlemaine.

* 6 July 1909, The Bendigo Independent. Report on a painting by Christian Yandell which was subsequently exhibited at the Bendigo Art Gallery. Text:

About People. At the meeting of the executive of the Bendigo Art Gallery yesterday afternoon, a painting was on view, presented for hanging in the gallery by Miss Christian Yandell of Langston street. Miss Yandell, who is only fourteen years of age, is considered by critics, to have more than usual faculty for this work. The picture is entitled "A Petition." The subject relates to the invasion of Greece by the Persians, under Xerxes. It depicts a Greek lady, accompanied by her slave, at the shrine of the Greek goddess of war, Pallas Athene. After making the customary offering, the lady is petitioning the aid of the goddess, so that Greeks may be victorious in the forthcoming battle of Salamis, and which ended in a signal victory for the Greeks. The Art Gallery committee considered the work meritorious for one so young, and will hand the picture in the gallery, stating that it was painted by a child of14 years. The girl has unmistakable talent, and with further tuition will no doubt bear out the high opinions formed of her. Her tutor is Mr. P Fegan.

* 29 November 1909, Bendigo Advertiser. Text:

EXHIBITION OF PICTURES. A PROMISING ARTIST. The two pictures which are on exhibition at the Masonic Hall, by Miss Christian Yandell, a native of Castlemaine, have created quite a stir in local art circles, and on Saturday the young artist was besieged with visitors who were anxious to inspect her work. One of the pictures is a representation of Minerva, the Goddess of War, being petitioned by a Greek lady, who is praying for assistance in the forthcoming battle of Salamis, which behind the suppliant is a slave with the customary offering. The other picture is also a Grecian subject, entitled "A Lay of Thermopylae," and it can be described as a sequel to "The Petition," the central figure being a lady playing a Greek harp and singing a lamen, on the last cause of the Grecian army. Her auditions are a mother and two children, whose occupation of weaving garlands of flowers has been temporarily abandoned to list to the song. The pictures are not copies , but are the result of the artist's own imagination, and they are remarkable for the accuracy of perspective, the taste show in coloring and shading, whilst there is what is termed by wielders of the brush the real "atmosphere" about them. When Miss Yandell was only 14 years of age she painted "The Petition," whilst she had just turned 15 when her second picture was completed, and it should be mentioned that Mr. H. Gegan, her tutor, had not seen "A Lay of Thermopylae" until the picture was finised. He was as much surprised and delighted t the talent shown by the young artst as everyone who has since inspected the picture, and was emphatic in saying that the undoubted ability displayed by Miss Yandell should be publically recognised by sending her to the National Art Gallery, Melbourne. It is understood that a meeting will be held next Thursday with this object in view.

Amongst the numberous visitors who inspected the pictures on Saturday was the Mayoress Mrs. Andrews, who weote as follows in the visitors book. - "Just a wonderful child artist; I wish her every success - C. Andrews." The impressions of Dr. J. Cook were described as follows: - "I am exceedingly please with the ability shown by my young friend, Miss C. Yandell, in the pictures 'A Petition and Thermopylae,' I earnestly hope that such artistic talent as is here undoubtedly displayed will be encouraged, and that our citizens will recognize that they have an opportunity of showing their enthusiasm for the advancement in her art of one among them so young." The pictures will be on view for one more week only.

* 5 February 1910, The Argus, Melbourne.

Youthful Artist. A Promising Achievement

Some remarkable efforts in pictorial art are on view in Singer's windows, Collins-street. They are the work of a young Bendigo girl, Miss Christian Yandell who has only just reached her fourteenth year. The subjects and arrangement are evidently inspired by a study of Alma Tadema's engraved works, and their execution shows that they have been carried through without reference to models either for figure or draperies. The ambition of the youthful painter is extraordinary and that she has been able to accomplish so much with imigination as her chief resource is still more extraordinary. Naturally they are crude in scheme, deficient in drawing, wandering in composition, and without much technical quality in the placing and manipulation of colour. But notwithstanding these defects they are promising achievements for one so young who is merely a child in appearance. The pictures are being exhibited in the hope that by means of an art union a sufficient sum of money may be raised in order that Miss Yandell may be sent to the drawing school at the National Gallery, where her undoubted talent will receive the necessary training.

* 1910-1914 - Enrolled in National Gallery of Victoria Art School.

* 1915 - marries Mervyn Napier Waller.

* 18 February 1917, Punch, Melbourne. Fine Art Display - A.N.A Exhibition, Victorian Society of Artists.

..... Miss Yandell pursues a path of her own with a number of allegorical effusions.

* 15 December 1921, The Bulletin, Sydney.

In The Renegades Rupert Atkinson shows the power to do things, and he may be more successful in a tale wherein the wind blows freely and there is less of the suffocating atmosphere of dark streets and close-curtained rooms. The book is illustrated by Christian Yandell with drawings that follow Beardsley’s model with a hint of Hugh McCrae.

--------------------

7. References

Anae, Nicole, "She flings her elfin dreams of mystery": the child-poet Gwen Cope in the land of "Australian Fairy", 1931-1939, Bookbird, 2013.

Andres, Sophia, The Pre-Raphaelite Art of the Victorian Novel: Narrative Challenges to Visual Gendered Boundaries, Ohio State UP, Columbus, 2005.

Anonymous, Australian Fairy Tales [review], Register, Adelaide, 18 April 1925.

-----, do., Sunday Times, Perth, 26 April 1925.

-----, Australian Fairy Tales - gift to Queen Mary, Register, Adelaide, 13 August 1925.

-----, do., Courier, Brisbane, 15 August 1925.

-----, Mr. J. Hume-Cook's Contribution, Argus, Melbourne, 5 March 1934.

Atkinson, E. J., The Renegades [poem], Edward A. Vidler, Melbourne, 1921. Illustrated by Christian Yandell. Available online: http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/auspoetry/inter/872050.shtml.

Bird, Delys, The 'Settling' of English, in Bennett, Bruce and Strauss, Jennifer (eds.), The Oxford Literary History of Australia, Oxford University Press, New York, 1998, 21-43.

Carroll, Lewis, Alice in Wonderland for Children Aged 9 to 10 Years, Whitcombe’s Story Books. No. 415. Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd., Christchurch & Auckland, 1924–1960 (9 editions). Adaptation by E. A. Stewart. Cover design Carlton Studio, Melbourne. Illustrated by Christian Yandell in black and white.

Bottigheimer, Ruth B., Fairy Tales : A New History, Excelsior Editions, State University of New York, 2009, 162p.

Bradford, Clare, The Return of Fairy : Australian Medievalist Fantasy for the Young, Australian Literary Studies, 26(3-4), 2011, 115 - 132.

Butler, Roger. Christian Waller, 1895–1956: Stained Glass Studies, Drawings and Prints. Deutscher Galleries, Armadale, 1978. Catalogue of an exhibition held 8–30 September 1978.

Cheney, Liana de Grolami. Pre-Raphaelitism and Medievalism in the Arts. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen P, 1992.

Clare, Jean, ed. Lost Paradise: Symbolist Europe. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1995.

Cook, Hume. Australian Fairy Tales. Illust. Christian Yandell. Melbourne: J. Howlett-Ross, 1925.

Deutscher, Chris, Roger Butler, and Dixie Witt. A Survey of Australian Relief Prints 1900–1950. Armadale: Deutscher Galleries, 1978.

Do Rozario, Rebecca-Anne C., Australia's Fairy Tales Illustrated in Print, Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies, 25(1), 2011, 13-32.

Draffin, Nicholas. Australian Woodcuts and Linocuts of the 1920s and 1930s. South Melbourne: Sun Academy Series, 1976.

English, Ethel, Australian Fairy Tales, Sydney, 1925, 92p.

Fairy Tale [webpage], Wikipedia, accessed 10 August 2014.

Fairy Tales - Worksheet 2 : Good guys, bad guys - a comparative chart of good and evil characters in fairy tales [webpage], accessed 10 August 2014.

Fiander, Lisa M., Writing in "A Fairy Story Landscape" - Fairy Tales and Contemporary Australian Fiction, Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, 2, 2003, 157-165.

Floyd, Robyn, Olga Ernst's contribution to the development of Australian identity in children's literature, Proceedings of the Australian Association for Research in Education Annual Conference, Melbourne, 2010, 9p.

-----, Early Australian fairy tales and Olga Ernst [blog], n.d., accessed 8 August 2014.

Fox, Essie. The Somnambulist. London: Orion, 2012.

Frankston City Council. Shining Lights, Ethereal Visions—Stained Glass in Frankston City. Frankston City Council, 2009.

French, Lawrence. “Supernal Dreams: Tolkien Artist Alan Lee on Designing Middle-earth for Lord of the Rings.” Cinefantastique v.i (21 March 2008).

Griffith, Penelope. Some Notes on Dating Whitcombe & Tombs Publications, 1882–1960. Clayton: Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, 6.2 (1982): 71–75.

Gibbs, May, Gumnut Babies, 1916.

-----, Snuggle Pot and Cuddle Pie, 1918.

Hancock, I.R, James Newton Haxton Hume Cook (1866-1942), Australian Dictionary of Biography [online], accessed 7 August 2014.

Harris, Mary Packer. The Cosmic Rhythm of Art and Literature. Adelaide: Frank Cork Publications, 1949.

Harris, P., Yardley, L., Cock, G. and Lawson, E., The Pixie O'Harris Fairy Book, Adelaide, 1924.

Holden, Robert. A Golden Age: A Treasury of Australian Children’s Fantasy Classics. 2 vols. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1992.

Honnighausen, Lothar. The Symbolist Tradition in English Literature: A Study of Pre-Raphaelitism and Fin de Siecle. New York: Cambridge UP, 1988.

Hudson, Hugh. “A Holman Hunt Painting Lost in Australia.” World of Antiques & Art 80 (2011}: 14–16.

Hylton, Jane. Modern Australian Women: Paintings and Prints 1925–1945. Adelaide: Art Gallery of South Australia, 2000.

Hines, Sarah, Collecting the Empire : Andrew Lang's Fairy Books (1889-1910), Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies, 24(1), 2010, 39-56.

Hume Cook's Australian Fairy Tales [webpage], Rare Book Section, Monash University Library, accessed 7 August 2014.

Mancoff, Debra N. Jane Morris: The Pre-Raphaelite Model of Beauty. San Francisco: Pomegranate, 2000.

Marris, Ethel Jackson, The white butterfly and other fairy tales, Melbourne, 1921, 107p. Illustrated by E.J. Morris.

Marson, Rev. Charles, Faery Stories, Petherick, Adelaide, 1981.

May, Lillian Paten. The Adventurous Elves—an Authoritative Fairy Story. Illust. Christian Yandell. Melbourne: Edward A Vidler, 1926.

McCarron, Reilly, The Elusive Australian Fairy Tale, Griffith Review, 2013, accessed 10 August 2014.

McFarlane, Jenny. Concerning the Spiritual: The Influence of the Theosophical Society on Australian Artists: 1890–1934. Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2012.

-----, Concerning the Spiritual in Melbourne: The Influence of the Theosophical Society on Some Melbourne Artists in the Early Modern Period. Sydney: Publisher, 1992.

-----, “The Theosophical Society and Christian Waller’s The Great Breath.” Australian Journal of Art XI (1993): 108–31.

-----, A Visionary Space: Theosophy and an Alternative Modernism in Australia 1890–1934. PhD Thesis, Australian National U, Canberra, 2006.

McLaren, Ian F., and J. Griffiths. Whitcombe’s Story Books: A Trans-Tasman Survey. Parkville, VIC: U of Melbourne Library, 1984.

Menges, Jeff A., Maidens, Monsters & Heroes : The Fantasy Illustrations of H.J. Ford, Dover, New York, 2010, 115p.

Miley, Caroline, Christian Waller Stained Glass - Towards the Light, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, 2022, 400p.

Monash Fairy Tale Salon, Monash University, 2014, accessed 10 August 2014.

Niall, Brenda and O'Neill, Francis, Australia through the looking glass: children's fiction 1830-1980, Melbourne University Press, 1984, 358p.

Neale, Anne. “Woolner’s Australian Romance.” Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies 19 (2010): 27–44.

Nunn, Pamela Gerrish. “Modern Australian Women: Paintings and Prints 1925–1945” [review]. Women’s Art Journal 24.2 (2004): 44–45.

O’Conor, Juliet. Botternikes and Other Lost Things—A Celebration of Australian Illustrated Children’s Books. Carlton, VIC: Miegunyah P, 2009.

Organ, M.K., Australian Aboriginal Dreaming Stories: A Chronological Bibliography of Published Works 1789-1991, Aboriginal History, 18(2), December 1994, 123-44.

-----, Ida Rentoul Outhwaite : Artist & Children's Book Illustrator : A Chronological Bibliography [webpage / blog], July 2012.

-----, Alice in OZ - "Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand? Or Australia?' - The Lewis Carroll Alice in Wonderland Books in Australia, Biblionews and Australian Notes and Queries: Journal of the Book Collectors' Society of Australia, 379, September 2013, 71-86.

-----, Hume Cook and Christian Yandell's Australian Fairy Tales, 1925, blogger.com, 6 August 2014. [Blog]

-----, Pre-Raphaelite Wonderland - Christian Yandell's Alice, Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian and New Zealand Literature, 29(1), 2015, 181-191. [Refereed journal article]

-----, Whitcombe's Alice in Wonderland - the first Australian illustrated edition 1924, blogger.com, 3 June 2015. [Blog]

Parris, Leslie (ed.), The Pre-Raphaelites, Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1984.

Paull, John, ed. Alice 125: A Celebration of the World’s Favourite Book. Exhibition catalogue. Flemington: Carroll Foundation, 1990.

Patten, Mary Lillian, The Adventurous Elves: An Authoritative Fairy Story, Edward A. Vidler, Melbourne, 1926, 54p.Illustrated by Christian Yandell.

Pu, Haifeng, Tolkien's Fantasy World, Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2(9), 2012, 1976-9.

Ringland, Holly, Not the Never Never : Australia's first fairy tales, Australia & New Zealand Festival of Literature & Arts, London, 29 May - 1 June 2014, accessed 20 August 2014.

Roe, Jill. Beyond Belief: Theosophy in Australia 1879–1939. Kensington, NSW: U of New South Wales P, 1986.

Rowe, Minnie, Gully Folk, Melbourne, 1919.

Sarmiala-Berger, Kirsti. “Images of Transformation: Occult and Mystical Influences in Australian Art, 1890s–1950s.” PhD thesis, Monash University, 2002.;

Stevens, J. M. The Mad Painter and Other Bush Sketches. Illust. Christian Yandell. Melbourne: Edward A. Vidler, 1926.

Symons, T. J. Tales from Far and Near: Selected and Edited for Use in Schools. 7th edit. Melbourne: George Robertson & Co., Specialty P, n. d. By arrangement with Blackie & Son, London. Cover illust. Christian Yandell.

Thomas, David. The Art of Christian Waller. Exhibition catalogue. Bendigo Art Gallery, 1992, 70p.

-----, “Waller, Christian Marjory Emily Carlyle (1894–1954).” Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Web.

Tolkien, J.R.R., On Fairy-Stories [1939], in Essays Presented to Charles Williams, Oxford University Press, 1947.

-----, Tolkien on fairy-stories, edited by Verlyn Flieger & Douglas Anderson, Harper Collins, London, 2008.

Trumble, Angus. Love & Death: Art in the Age of Queen Victoria. Adelaide: Art Gallery of South Australia, 2002. Print.

-----, “Rossetti’s Wombat—A Pre-Raphaelite Obsession in Victorian England.” Harold White Lecture, National Library of Australia, Canberra. 16 April 2003. Web.

Verrocchio, Jacqueline Anne. “Not the Last of England: Thomas Woolner’s Antipodean Odyssey.” Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies 11 (2002): 19–31.

Waggoner, Diane (ed.), The Pre-Raphaelite Lens: British Photography and Painting, 1848–1875, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2010.

Walker, Kirsty Stonell,. Pre-Raphaelite Hobbits, The Kissed Mouth [blog], 25 April 2011.

Waller, Christian, The Gates of Dawn: A Book Made for the Young, Golden Arrow P, Melbourne, 1932. [Unpublished]

-----, The Great-Breath: A Book of Seven Designs, Golden Arrow P, Melbourne, 1932.

-----, The Gates of Dawn: A Book Made for the Young, Golden Arrow P, Melbourne, 1977.

-----, The Gates of Dawn: A Book Made for the Young [reprint], Golden Arrow P, Melbourne, 1978.

-----, The Great-Breath: A Book of Seven Designs [reprint], Gryphon Books, Toorak, 1978.

-----, A Stained Glass Window, Manuscripts: The Book Nook Miscellany, 1, November 1932, 26, 29.

Westbury, Frank Atha, Australian Fairy Tales, London, 1897, 357p. Illustrated by A.J. Johnson.

Westhoven, Mollie, She Copes with a Five Year Queue . . ., The Argus Women’s Magazine, 27 July 1948: 2.

Whitfield, Jessie Mary, The spirit of the bush fire and other Australian fairy tales, Sydney, 1898, 313p. Illustrated by G.W. Lambert.

Wilmot, Frank and Ray Newmarch, Here is Faery, G. Robertson, Melbourne, 112p. Illustrated by Percy Leason.

Wilton, Andrew, Five Centuries of British Painting: From Holbein to Hodgkin, World of Art Series, Thames & Hudson, London, 2001.

Windling, Terri, On the Pre-Raphaelites and Writers of Fantasy, Realms of Fantasy, 1997.

Young, Blamire, A Book of Linocuts [review], The Herald, Melbourne, 9 April 1932: 24.

--------------------

Last updated: 22 September 2024

Michael Organ, Australia

Search This Blog

My research

Christian Yandell - Australia's latter day Pre-Raphaelite

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Michael Organ - publications

Captain Cook's disobeyance of orders 1770

Michael Organ - webpage index