Raymond McGrath - Rain prince and the fire demon: a book of the bush

MLMSS 4838 ADD-ON 2044/Volume 1X

fonds

1918

Textual Records, Drawings, Paintings

100068

0.30 metres of textual material (1 outsize volume)

Raymond McGrath won a scholarship to Sydney University where he studied architecture, as well as making engravings, woodcuts and watercolours and writing poetry and prose for newspapers and a University magazine. His thesis on Chinese architecture is held by the Australian National Gallery in Canberra. He travelled to England and thence Cambridge where he remodelled a house called Finella, which made his name. In 1930 he was appointed decoration consultant for the B.B.C.'s new Broadcasting House. His houses, his books on modern architecture and decoration, his exhibition work and his industrial designs made him a prominent figure in the arts. With World War II underway work was hard to find and McGrath became a senior architect in the Office of Public Works in Eire. Ten years were spent on the design of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Concert Hall, never built. A biography, titled God's architect: a life of Raymond McGrath by Donal O'Donovan was published by Kilbride books in 1995 and is held in the Mitchell Library at ML Q720.92/M147.15/1

A verse play in manuscript and typescript illustrated in pen and ink and watercolour

See also Raymond McGrath's literary manuscripts, 1920-c.1931, at MLMSS 4838