A recent interesting find in North Queensland is this postcard dated 1910 featuring a watercolour scene of South Africa by German Heinrich Egersdorfer (1853-1915) , who is said to have influenced prominent Australian artists.
The postcard carries the comment : You see nothing like this in the Australian bush . It bears a postal address : c/o M. Nilsen, Box 5672 Johannesburg . The sender tells his dearest mother that he is glad she is coming to Sydney, and that the change will do "you both " well . A nice letter had been received from Liz .
The comment on the front of the postcard is in the same handwriting as on the obverse .The postcard , one of a series of Sketches of South African Life , dealing with the Dutch Voortrekkers , captioned A Council of War , was published by R.O. Fusslein, P.O. Box 6345 Johannesburg.
A painter, illustrator and cartoonist , Egersdorfer, right, was born in Nuremberg where he studied lithography , some of his work appearing in the highly regarded Leipzig illustrated news magazine . In the 1870s he travelled abroad, took part in the Franco-Prussian War and spent time in England .
Then the adventurous artist went to South Africa where he founded the South African Illustrated News , Cape Town , in 1879, providing black and white drawings often of a humorous nature, capturing life in the Cape colony .
When the paper folded in 1885 , he voyaged to Sydney where he worked for the Sydney Illustrated News and the Town and Country Journal. At some stage he moved to Melbourne and lived in the Charterisville Mansion artists colony , the claim made in the Encyclopedia of Australian Art that artists such as Lionel and Norman Lindsay and Will Dyson may have derived their interest in German black and white art from Egersdorfer.
The artist's first son was born in Melbourne. According to Trove, his drawings initialled 'H.E.’ include Mining Life in Victoria – Scenes at a New Rush near Rushworth ( TCJ 17 September 1887, 599) and an illustration portraying a settler shooting two Aborigines at his front door ( TCJ 17 December 1887, 1271).
From about 1889 he contributed cartoons to the Bulletin usually signed 'Heiner Egersdorfer’, including an original drawing for a cartoon published January 12, 1889 entitled An Aboriginality : 'James: “Hello, Charlie, what are you doing up there, paintin’ Hams?”/ Bush Artist (indignant): “Hams be blowed, them’s the Queen's Arms” (Mitchell Library Px*D461/10). Other ML originals include a troop inspection gag and a cartoon about selling art November 2 , 1889.
There was even a Queensland mother- in- law joke cartoon .
From about 1889 he contributed cartoons to the Bulletin usually signed 'Heiner Egersdorfer’, including an original drawing for a cartoon published January 12, 1889 entitled An Aboriginality : 'James: “Hello, Charlie, what are you doing up there, paintin’ Hams?”/ Bush Artist (indignant): “Hams be blowed, them’s the Queen's Arms” (Mitchell Library Px*D461/10). Other ML originals include a troop inspection gag and a cartoon about selling art November 2 , 1889.
There was even a Queensland mother- in- law joke cartoon .
Egersdorfer went back to South Africa and contributed scenes from the Anglo-Boer War to various publications , some of his drawings appearing in a souvenir collection of famous cartoons of the war . Upon the death of his wife and another son , in financial difficulties, he returned to England where he died soon after .
It is believed he drew watercolours, some of which have survived, specifically for the postcard series , including the one at the top of this post, published by Fusslein, who was listed as an independent trader , manufacturer and importer of pictorial postcards and albums. Egersdorper exhibited with the South African Society of Artists, his paintings and drawings now in various galleries and the Afrikaans Museum .
