This publication celebrates 50 years of the Harold Wright and Sarah & William Holmes Scholarship, which every year is awarded to a print scholar from Australia or New Zealand, to travel to London and spend up to 12 months carrying out self directed study in the Prints and Drawings Department of the British Museum.

I was awarded and undertook this scholarship in 2014. Amongst the prints studied, those of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, specifically the Scherzi di Fantasia caught my attention. Unlike his gloriously flouncy paintings for elite patrons these prints delve into a very macabre world of witchcraft and necromancy, with burning heads and an array of pagan deeds depicted. This was of course very interesting to me with my love of tarot cards and armchair mysticism! Plus the fact that scholars have never been able to interpret their true meaning and function, so at odds with the rest of Tiepolo’s oeuvre.

I have humbly offered my interpretation in this book. Published by the University of Melbourne in 2019 is was accompanied an exhibition curated by Kerrianne Stone at the Noel Shaw Gallery, Baillieu Library and other events a symposium at the University of Melbourne, and an exhibition at the British Museum to mark the 50 year milestone of this wonderful scholarship.

For more info: https://library.unimelb.edu.au/exhibitions/horizon-lines