Derham Groves

Jerzy Faczynski (1917-1995) was a Polish architect who migrated to England in 1939. He is perhaps best remembered for writing Studies in Polish Architecture (1946) and designing St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Leyland (1964). He was also an inveterate scribbler and recently hundreds of his sketches have come on the market, often selling for only a couple of dollars apiece. Here are three delightful ‘post modern’ sketches by him.

Last week I attended the annual Popular Culture Association conference in San Francisco. I also visited San Jose to see the Sarah Winchester House, which was built by the widow of the gun manufacturer to appease/confuse the spirits of those killed by Winchester rifles during the Indian and Civil wars. It has 160 rooms and includes a staircase that leads nowhere and doors and windows that open onto blank walls. But the visual highlight of San Jose for me was the 1950s vintage ‘Pure Pork Sausage’ sign near the railway station.

Mudrooroo’s Aboriginal detective Dr. Watson Holmes Jackamara is one of the most interesting characters in Australian detective fiction. He is certainly a lot edgier than Arthur Upfield’s Aboriginal detective Napoleon Bonaparte, although Jackamara owes much to Bonaparte. Jackamara is the subject of an artist’s book that I’ve been working on for far too long now, which I must finish in 2008 (my first New Year’s resolution!). In Mudrooroo’s Christmas story ‘The Healer’ (1991) Jackamara dresses up as Santa Claus (very appropriate for Christmas Day!). Following are four of the seven little linocuts for the artist’s book Dr. Watson Holmes Jackamara (L-R: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Jackamara’s namesakes; Napoleon Bonaparte, Jackamara’s predecessor; Jakamara as Father Christmas; and the unnamed crooked Queensland businessman/politician in The Kwinkin by Mudrooroo):

In 2002 I published a little book titled The Rebuses of Sherlock Holmes containing eight Sherlockian rebuses devised by the Australian book designer, cartoonist and graphic artist Vane Lindesay. This one is my favourite:

Recently I purchased an autograph book that once belonged to John E. Forrest of Marrickville N.S.W. In 1947 he collected the autographs of many local and overseas sporting identities, including the boxers Ken Bailey and Vic Patrick; the cricketer Keith Miller; the wrestlers Al Costello (who wrestled with Roy Heffernan in the USA as the Fabulous Kangaroos), Dutch Hefner, Sammy Stein (also a NFL footballer), and Big Chief Little Wolf; and even the photojournalist Frank Hurley who, when he wasn’t photographing the Antarctic with Ernest Shackleton, was photographing the wrestling. It’s a great collection of 42 signatures.