Australiana

Australiana decoration in Federation houses

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Wunderlich CeilingsSee also page Federation Ceilings	Australian leadlightSee also pageFederation Leadlight Windows	Henry Lucien	Robert Prenzel	Federation Leadlight glassSee also pageArt Nouveau and Federation style

Table of Contents

Australiana decoration in Federation houses

The Discreet Charm of Federation

Federation Leadlight Glass

2. Gallery from Bob Bush Leadlight Glass

Gallery of Federation Tiles

Robert Wilhelm Prenzel (1866-1941), woodcarver and cabinetmaker

Henry, Lucien

An Australian style

Galleries to visit on-line:

Federation Cornice

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The Discreet Charm of Federation

September 5, 2012 by Ingridweir

Sometimes it’s hard to really see something you’re so used to looking at. There’s so many Federation style houses in Australia, bricky, sitting squarely on the block- the old schoolmasters house seemed just one of many.


But in redesigning a house, I like to work with the style- not fight it or try to make it into something it’s not. So I bought a copy of The Federation House by Ian Evans to start to grasp the logic of these homes. Not to do a perfect restoration job, but to find a way of reinterpreting the elements.
And then a surprising thing; through looking intently at these houses- I came to really like them. Even though there are elements of English Queen Anne and American east coast– they express an emotional connection to Australia. Kangaroos & emus make their way into carved windows and stained glass and gargoyles. Waratahs and flannel flowers are transfered to wallpaper patterns & pressed metal ceilings. Sunrises are captured in wooden grilles. The political event of Federation, the states becoming Australia in 1901, changed the way people saw what was around them.

the front bedroom

from The Federation House by Ian Evans

The front room of the old schoolmasters house has a beautiful bay window, customized now with a built in window seat. Found this splendid drawing in the Evans book, really an encouragement to go all the way!

The most popular element of the Federation era still used in interiors today has to be the pressed metal ceiling- they are being uncovered, put in new, the metal sheets used in bars in Sydney. Had carried a hope that some might be hiding under the new ceilings of the old schoolmasters house- but a roof investigation didn’t reveal any.

Wunderlich factory 1895- making pressed metal ceilings

Along with the ceilings, the other inspiring part of Federation style are the windows- epecially the ones with coloured glass and patterns. The new sunroom was basically designed around these recycled windows – a beautiful reminder of the grace notes left behind from the Federation builders & the surprising vitality hidden in their craftsmanship.

Federation rose window in the bathroom

coloured glass windows used in the new sunroom

from "The Federation House" by Hugh Fraser and Ray Joyce
Ballarat home PHOTOGRAPHY MARK ROPER

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Federation Leadlight Glass

• see also page Federation Leadlight Windows
  

Ian Evans writes that:"Federation-style houses constitute a unique statement of patriotism in architectural form. 

• The rising sun emblem that appeared on countless gable ends symbolised the dawn of a new age for Australia and was itself adopted as a national symbol.
• After more than a century of British cultural domination Australians had begun to find inspiration in their own country and in its remarkable flora and fauna.
• For the first time, the flowers, birds and animals of the bush were used to decorate plaster, pressed metal, glass, terracotta and fretworked timber."
  

1. Gallery from 'Art Nouveau Stained Glass' 

• an album on Flickr_files by raaen99 Click on any image to expand the view

Detail of a Stained Glass Window on a Lift Shaft in the Rendezvous Grand Hotel (former Commercial Travellers Association) - Flinders Street, Melbourne raaen99 2 [★]	A Stained Glass Window on a Lift Shaft in the Rendezvous Grand Hotel (former Commercial Travellers Association) - Flinders Street, Melbourne raaen99	Detail of a Stained Glass Window on a Lift Shaft in the Rendezvous Grand Hotel (former Commercial Travellers Association) - Flinders Street, Melbourne raaen99	Detail of a Stained Glass Window on a Lift Shaft in the Rendezvous Grand Hotel (former Commercial Travellers Association) - Flinders Street, Melbourne raaen9
Detail of a Stained Glass Window on a Lift Shaft in the Rendezvous Grand Hotel (former Commercial Travellers Association) - Flinders Street, Melbourne raaen99	Detail of a Stained Glass Window on a Lift Shaft in the Rendezvous Grand Hotel (former Commercial Travellers Association) - Flinders Street, Melbourne raaen99	Detail of a Stained Glass Window on a Lift Shaft in the Rendezvous Grand Hotel (former Commercial Travellers Association) - Flinders Street, Melbourne raaen99	Detail of a Stained Glass Window on a Lift Shaft in the Rendezvous Grand Hotel (former Commercial Travellers Association) - Flinders Street, Melbourne raaen99
A Federation Stained Glass Window of a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo in the Kitchen Door of a Villa - Thornbury raaen99 Detail of a Kookaburra in an Oeil de Boeuf Window of an Edwardian Weatherboard Villa - Ballarat raaen99	A Federation Stained Glass Window of a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo in the Kitchen Door of a Villa - Thornbury raaen99 A Federation Stained Glass Window of a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo in the Kitchen Door of a Villa - Thornbury raaen99	An Oeil de Boeuf Window featuring a Kookaburra of an Edwardian Weatherboard Villa - Ballarat raaen99 A Window featuring a pair of Kookaburras - Ballarat raaen99	Detail of a Kookaburra Stained Glass Window - Brunswick raaen99

2. Gallery from Bob Bush Leadlight Glass

• 102 Smith St. Summer Hill NSW 2130. Call Sydney (02) 9799 6107

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Gallery of Federation Tiles

• an album on Flickr_files by raaen99 Click on any image to expand the view

An Art Nouveau Washstand tile of a Sturt's Desert Pea raaen99	Detail of an Art Nouveau Washstand tile of a Sturt's Desert Pea raaen99	A Stylised Floral Art Nouveau Washstand tile raaen99	Detail of a Stylised Floral Art Nouveau Washstand tile raaen99
Art Nouveau Hallstand tile of a Water Lily raaen99	Art Nouveau Hallstand tile of a Water Lily raaen99	Art Nouveau Hallstand tile of a Water Lily raaen99	A Stylised Floral Art Nouveau Washstand Tile raaen99

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Robert Wilhelm Prenzel (1866-1941), woodcarver and cabinetmaker

He was the man of whom Mr. J. J. Simons, of the Young Australia League, said 'Some day connoisseurs will look at a magnificent wood carving and say with conviction, "That's a Prenzel", just as they say now, "That's a Rembrandt," or "That's a Corot." His wood carvings are the most perfect works of art I know.'^[1] 

Detail of bed from Matthias Suite held at National Gallery of Victoria

Robert Wilhelm Prenzel (1866-1941), woodcarver and cabinetmaker, was born on 30 March 1866 at Kittlitztreben, Prussia, son of Robert Wilhelm Prenzel, carpenter, and his wife Johanna.

• After completing a four-year apprenticeship with the Elbing woodcarver Gebauer, he studied at the Düsseldorf Academy, and 'carved' his way through Europe for four years before arriving in Melbourne on 24 November 1888. On 28 November 1890 he married Mina Schelling; they had three children. He was naturalized in 1897.
• In Melbourne Prenzel first worked for a shipbuilder and, as a modeller of terracotta architectural ornaments, for Otto Waschatz.
• During the 1890s he designed furniture for Nunan Bros and was in partnership with Johann Treede.
• Treede & Prenzel, architectural modellers, designers and woodcarvers, worked on such projects as the carvings of the ceiling and walls of St Patrick's Cathedral.
• In the early 1900s Prenzel was in business on his own as a woodcarver in South Melbourne, and, from about 1910 to 1930, as a furniture manufacturer in Toorak Road, South Yarra.

Mr R. Prenzel at work on a Queenslandcoat of arms for the Young Australia League

Prenzel was a craftsman of great skill and facility and, during his long working-life, produced numerous carvings and great quantities of cabinet furniture. 

• His early work was in the Continental Gothic-Renaissance and Rococo revival styles; but, encouraged by J. A. Panton 'to carve things which would be more readily understood … the flora and fauna of Australia', he became a champion of things Australian, establishing a native garden at Black Rock and becoming an adviser to the Commonwealth government on Australian timbers.^[2]

Despite his acclaim as a leading artist, Robert Prenzel's `naturalisation' as an Australian citizen in 1897 did not save him from the effects of anti-German feeling during World War I. In the very different social climate after the war, his Australian Art Nouveau furniture was less in demand, and he found himself deserted by many of his `society' clients.

Robert Prenzel 1886-1941 Paperback– December 31, 1994 by Terence Lane (Author)

Detail, Large wardrobe from the Mathias suite, blackbean, 1906

Things were going so well for him that he moved his workshop to 11 Toorak Road, South Yarra, to be near all his affluent customers.
Then things got tough for Prenzel during the war years. He would sit in his shop front window in Toorak Road carving these unique panels as a way to supplement his income.

		Robert Prenzel carved panel of two kookaburras on a eucalypt branch dated 1923
Mathias suite washstand	Matthias Suite wardrobe detail	Three of the 36 double sided panels from the staircase of the Glenormiston homestead in the Western District of Victoria.

Henry, Lucien

Lucien Henry, who in Sydney in 1879 from political exile in New Caledonia, was an artist who, during his relatively short stay, pioneered the use of

Australian motifs as a national style in decorative art. Henry worked in a wide range of media from painting, sculpture and architecture to stained glass and other decorative arts. He was particularly interested in the decorative form of the waratah, which he integrated into a number of his works. As a teacher and art instructor at the Working Men's College, and later the Sydney Technical College, he influenced a rising generation of Australian artists and, importantly, art teachers.

An Australian style

Henry's working life in Sydney coincided with a growing sense of national pride coupled with an increasing urgency for a national style, as the colony approached its centenary event. Artists such as Julian Ashton were urging fellow artists to paint contemporary Australian scenes to illustrate the Australia around them, while theBulletin was also in favour of an emerging Australian identity in the arts.
Henry saw the forms of Australian flora and fauna as ideal representations of the nation, and his work through the middle and late 1880s reflected this. Henry was particularly entranced by the waratah which he championed in a number of his own designs and templates for use in architectural and artistic works. was Henry's influence in the use of the native flora and fauna that in 1915, Richard Baker, Curator and Economic Botanist at the Technology Museum (now Powerhouse Museum) wrote

• Visions of a Republic: the work of Lucien Henry

  It is impossible to say now, or to give the name of individuals who idealised or conventionalised the Lotus, Acanthus, Honeysuckle or Iris, but in this young country of a little over a century's growth, a few of the artists' names may be mentioned who have introduced our native flora in decorative arts…Mr Lucien Henry, the first teacher in Art was par excellence a designer from nature…In Mr L Henry, Australia certainly had an artist possessing real genius, and his originality in design and other fields of fine and Applied Art will live long in the annals of New South Wales technical education. (His works) are a splendid proof of the fertility of his brain, for they cover original designs from our native fauna and flora in architecture, ironwork, wall-papers, glass, stained windows, jewellery, china, chandeliers, electric lights, tiles, horology &c. [10]

Henry's contribution to the development of an Australian style was most dramatically shown in his bookAustralian Decorative Arts . Produced between 1889 and 1891, Henry's book was made up of 50 large format plates and 50 illustrations which he conceived as the foundation of a National School, and dedicated to the youth of Australasia. [11] Henry's book recast many classical architectural forms, such as a Corinthian column capital into a lyrebird capital, and placed native plants and animals into traditional formats such as cabbage palm rosettes, waratah panels or kookaburra lamp stands.

		Lucien HenrySelf portrait (1880s)237.1983	Lucien Henry Waratah (1887)238.1983
Lucien Henry, Public Park Fountain,Hippocampus and waratah, Watercolour over pencil, circa 1890.  Henry designed this Islamic-style pleasure dome in the shape of a giant red waratah bloom. At its centre is a fountain. Copyright: Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.	Lucien Henry design for wall paper 1915 Contributed by Internet Archive[The Australian flora in applied art (1915)]	This Beaux-Arts graduate and Paris Communard was exiled from France to New Caledonia, settling in Sydney after his reprieve in 1879. As both teacher and practising designer, Lucien Henry made a vital contribution to the Sydney art scene during two of its most active and experimental decades.	Fascinated by the pictorial possibilities of native flora and fauna – especially the waratah, the floral emblem of New South Wales – Henry produced superlative designs for stained glass, interior décor, architecture and items of applied art. He also created this striking, highly-detailed painting, 'Waratah', with its scarlet bloom set against an intricate turquoise-and-gold geometric Islamic-style pattern. It was exhibited in 1887 at the Eighth Annual Exhibition of the Art Society of NSW.	Stained glass figure representing Australia, Sydney Town Hall

• Click here or on the first image above to read a transcript of John Docker's talk on Henry Lucien.

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Galleries to visit on-line:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/40262251@N03/sets/

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Collection: Powerhouse Museum

xmas-stained-glass-450x458.jpg

(Image: Stained glass panel, eucalyptus, waratah, flannel flower and Christmas bush design, lead, glass, made by George Hulme, Sydney Technical College, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 1900-1907)
- See more at: http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/insidethecollection/category/design-and-designers/page/6/#sthash.ZdhZBrLu.dpuf

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Federation Cornice

In 1910 the Commonwealth of Australia was created by the federation of the states. In a new spirit of nationalism an attempt was made to create a distinctive Australian style.


The Federation style borrowed much from previous periods but some distinctive features evolved, particularly the use of motifs derived from native Australian plants and trees.

CN454

Ceiling:	300.00 mm
Wall:	275.00 mm
Length:	3.25 m

These scenes from 19th centurary Australia depict the spirit of the country at the time of federation. An historic and very Australian cornice.

CN424

Ceiling:	110.00 mm
Wall:	110.00 mm
Length:	3.60 m

Federation decoration often included images of Australian native flora. Cornice Cn424 shows wattle leaves.

CN451

Ceiling:	110.00 mm
Wall:	120.00 mm
Length:	3.60 m

The gum nut is essentially Australian.
Cornice CN451 uses the gum nut to express its Australian federation quality.
A great cornice for kids rooms or any room where you want something uniquely Australian.


CN35

Ceiling:	77.00 mm
Wall:	95.00 mm
Length:	3.60 m

Cornice CN35 is another gumnut themed cornice. It can be used on lower ceilings but other wise has the same Australian quality.

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1. ^ 
   
   
   
   
   
   http://manins.net.au/black-rock/prenzel.html
2. ^ http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/prenzel-robert-wilhelm-8104