Roz Hulse Ltd. - Beautiful Books, Maps & Prints

Building the Bridge. 
Robert Emerson Curtis. 1933
Building the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Covers Building the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Colophon. Robert Emerson Curtis. Sir Michael Culme Building the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The Completed Bridge Building the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The Completed Bridge. Coloured
Building the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Lithograph construction detail 1

 

 Building the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Lithograph construction detail 2 Building the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Lithograph construction detail 3 Building the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Lithograph construction detail 4
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Curtis, Robert Emerson. Building the Bridge. Sydney, Simmons Limited, 1933. Folio. 1st Edition, Limited, no 254 of 400, signed by Robert Emerson Curtis and also inscribed. Cloth backed paper boards decorated in silver and red with an underside view of the bridge in construction. The cloth at spine is showing wear but holding strong. Pp60 including 13 full page lithographs of the building of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and one coloured showing the completed bridge at night illuminated by both manmade lights and starlight. All pages are bright and clean. Curtis's artistry combines the huge engineering project with the fragility of human involvement. Curtis went on to become a war artist. The colophon shows an inscription in Curtis's hand "To Sir Michael Culme Seymour, Sydney April 15 1945". 

Sir Michael Culme Seymour the 5th Baronet of Rockingham was also from a long line of ancestry of Admirals of the Fleet and he too served in the Royal Navy. He was Captain aboard HMS Brazen in Norway in 1940 and then went on to Serve on HMS Ruler. On March 16 1945 HMS Ruler arrived at Sydney and went on to provided support of US assault landings on Okinawa and then transporting children from Japan to Sydney and later delivering prisoners of war to Sydney, Australia. Sir Michael Culme Seymour was also noted as a great appreciator of the Arts and it seems very fitting that he should be given this work, by the artist who not only recorded the building of the bridge, which Culme Seymour would see during his Royal Naval Service, but also, perhaps, some of the wartime imagery in which Culme was also involved. A very interesting association copy of this attractive book,  in excellent order.
Cat. No. 91725                                           £850

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