I became aware of Rosalyn Norton on a weekend that found me cruising Netflix documentaries.  “The Witch of King’s Cross” which sounded interesting.  As a documentary it was fair to midland, but the topic interested me.  An artist accused of “blasphemy” whose 1952 book was banned in Australia and from importation to the US is always going to raise my interest.  Especially these days when Christianity shows itself to be nothing more than a rage machine to enforce white dominance.

Artist Rosaleen Norton and her friend poet Gavin Greenless were living a bohemian lifestyle in 1950’s Australia.  She read an odd mix of Freud, Jung,and Aleister Crowley.  Her grayscale images contained Pagan imagery, with often a dozen different characters all intermingled like an Escher drawing, if Escher had HR Geiger as an influence.  But if you draw naked women who look like women and not little girls, and throw in a horn or two, Christian authorities will get all up in arms.

Independent publisher Walter Glover was intrigued by Norton’s imagery and Greenless’ words, and agreed to publish a limited run art book.  An outrage machine fired up before the book release party even happened.  One local paper titled their article, “Witches, Demons on Rampage in Weird Sydney Sex Book”.  All this eventually led to an undercover officer purchasing a copy then making charges of Indecency.

In 1952, less than 500 of the planned 1000 copies were ever bound before the court ordered them destroyed.  Later there was a 1982 Australian release with some images (highlighted in the court case) blacked out.  My copy is a 2013 release from Teitan Press in the US (608 of 650).  All were created with consent of the publishers family. (Both Norton and Greenness had passed away by the end of 1979).  The Teitan version includes a history of the legal troubles and takes up 40% of the volume.

The art itself consists of 31 grayscale images, each with an accompanying poem.  The latter are a bit abstract for me, as I still expect poetry to rhyme.  The images definitely have a unique style.  Most of the plates are pretty dense with multiple layers of details.  For example, it would never be a bowl of fruit.  You’d have to have a bowl of fruit held by a snake, coming out of a human who is also a castle spire surrounded by tiny creatures.  The artist described her inspirations as coming from mental journeys into other worlds.

The Art of Rolaleen Norton met my expectations.  I am definitely glad I found this version and didn’t spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars to import a used copy of the 1982 version.  Perhaps I was a little disappointed that the art wasn’t more scandalous, but that is usually the case with banned books.  It will rest in the art section of my library along with Manet, Renoir, and Sargent.