Illuminated address to Inez Bensusan / Thea Proctor, 1902

V/308

fonds

1902

Textual Records, Graphic Materials

1001095

1 illuminated address - watercolour and pencil on paper - 39.2 x 49.5 cm

Inez Bensusan (1871-1967) was a suffragette, actor, playwright, producer, and the daughter of a wealthy Sydney industrialist. Bensusan was a member of the Australian and New Zealand Women Voters and the Women Writers’ Suffrage League (formed 1908). In 1913 she was a founding executive member of the Jewish League for Women’s Suffrage. In addition to plays, she wrote short stories and articles relating to the Suffragette movement, and gave speeches and engaged in debates on the subject.

On 19 April 1902, prior to her departure for America, Bensusan gave a farewell ‘At Home’ to about fifty friends (including Thea Proctor) in the rooms of the Society of Artists. On 21 April, fifty or so friends farewelled Bensusan in the winter garden of the Australia Hotel.

Reference:
Library correspondence file

Purchased by vendor at Dalia Stanley auctions

This illuminated address is painted in the Art Nouveau style using watercolours. The autographs included in the address include several young intellectual and artistic Australians in the early stages of their art, literature and theatre careers in Edwardian Sydney. Most notable in this list are Thea Proctor, Sydney Long, and Ethel Turner. Above each female figure is a quote from William Makepeace Thackerey’s poem The Pen and the Album, with each figure holding an object symbolising Comedy (a mask) and Tragedy (a skull).

In copyright: Life of creator plus 70 years
Rights and Restrictions Information:: No reproduction without prior written approval of copyright holder.