Prostitutes, drunkards and erotic dancers. These were amongst the favourite subjects of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), whose art is the subject of a major retrospective at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Toulouse-Lautrec: Paris and the Moulin Rouge is composed of more than 100 works spanning his brief yet celebrated career. This includes…
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![Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Jane Avril at the Jardin de Paris [Jane Avril au Jardin de Paris] 1893
brush and spatter lithograph, 128.2 x 93.6 cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Gift of Orde Poynton Esq. CMG 1996](http://lipmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Jane-Avril-at-the-Jardin-de-Paris-214x300.jpg)
Tasmania has a lot of problems that ‘mainlanders’ might not know about. As Jonathan West writes in his essay, “Obstacles to progress”, ‘Tasmania ranks at the bottom among Australian states on virtually every dimension of economic, social, and cultural performance.’ It’s perhaps timely then that this island state is investigated through an entire issue of…
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Oh, AA Gill. My feelings about him are mixed. On the one hand, he is mordantly witty, and utterly bereft of filter or bullshit – my kind of writer. On the other hand, he can be brutal and acidic and so proud and self-satisfied that it’s incredibly off-putting. AA Gill is away is his first…
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A Fatal Debt is a murder mystery novel, centring on the business elite of New York City, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The protagonist is Ben Cowper, attending psychiatrist at New York’s Episcopal hospital. When major donor Harry Shapiro is brought in by his wife, Cowper is caught between professional opinion and…
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A larger-than-life circular mirror angled to reflect the clouds above. The aptly-titled Sky Mirror (2006) graces the lawn outside Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), which is currently showing a major exhibition by the artist behind this intriguing work, Anish Kapoor. Provocative yet majestic, Sky Mirror makes a striking appearance in Circular Quay and,…
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A few years ago, Melbourne Books began compiling the country’s prize-winning stories and publishing them in an annual collection called, Award Winning Australian Writing (AWAW). Last year, they added poems to the mix. It’s such a wonderful idea I don’t know why it wasn’t done sooner. The series is now in its fifth year. There are…
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If you’ve got the workings of the ultimate cliché chick lit novel stashed in your bottom draw, then you’re too late. Gemma Crisp already wrote the most typical chick lit novel ever with her offering, Be Careful What You Wish For. Nina works in the giddy world of women’s glossies. Supported by her boyfriend Jeremy,…
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First published in 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the sort of book I like to read at nighttime, under a blanket, with only a torch to light up the words on the page. The novella devolves upon the story of Dr Jekyll, a middle class…
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Granta is one of those literary journals you’re told to subscribe to when you study writing. It publishes the full gamut of linguistic genres – poetry, prose, fiction, non-fiction – in quarterly instalments. Usually the writing it features kind of makes a budding writer ashamed to call themselves a ‘writer’ while the understated beauty of…
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Katherine Boo’s book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, is a devastating and important investigation of slum life in India. Stylistically, it’s near perfect: the writing is erudite, informative, intimate, and accessible. It is narrative non-fiction in the best possible sense: it reads like a novel, but avoids the trap of over-interpretation. Boo expertly balances an objective…
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Picking up a memoir about the porn industry, Not Your Ordinary Housewife, I didn’t expect the story Nikki Stern offered. I expected Stern to be a disadvantaged woman, struggling to make ends meet for the sake of her children. Instead, I found that Stern was involved in the adult industry in many different and varied…
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There are some books which stay with you for their amazing stories; some for their brilliant use of language. The ones which really stand out are those which combine both, and there is nothing more unsatisfying than to read a book which has the potential for both, but doesn’t quite reach the mark. Miral…
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The name Alfred Hitchcock and his movie Psycho are legendary in the history of Hollywood. For movie buffs and casual cinema-goers alike, a film about the man himself and his personal struggles while trying to fund and make Psycho is an interesting prospect. Based on a book about the making of the classic horror movie, Hitchcock…
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Martin Amis is the Mick Jagger of the literary world. His leathery skin and faint monobrow would normally be viewed as unattractive qualities if taken individually but when paired with a defiant gaze and a freshly rolled cigarette Amis exudes charisma. It’s hard not to stare. It’s hard not to want to be him. It’s…
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