Doris Lusk

Doris Lusk

During the 1940s and 1950s the School Journal regularly featured work by leading New Zealand contemporary artists.

While some of these artists, such as E Mervyn Taylor and Russell Clark, had ongoing relationships with the publication, for others illustration was a sideline to their usual practice.

One such artist was Doris Lusk (1916-1990), who contributed two covers for the School Journal in 1960. At this time, Lusk was a well-established painter who had been exhibiting regularly since the early 1940s and who had seen her work published in a number of art and literary journals.

Lusk's cover illustrations for the School Journal have a fluid and playful look. Through careful design, she made the most of the possibilities of two-colour printing. In this cover, a simple drawing of a cat and a dog is multiplied and rotated to produce a lively pattern. By using white space and overlapping the red and blue inks, Lusk extended the range of colour she had to work with, enhancing the patterned effect of her design.

Biography of Doris Lusk – Dictionary of New Zealand Biography website

Permission of the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa must be obtained before any reuse of this image.

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