2 February - 27 April 2008

MUSEUM SPACE

ARTISTS OF STEEL: THE ART OF AUSTRALIAN STAMP ENGRAVING

From the 1930s to the 1960s, the one-colour, intaglio process was in use for the production of Australian stamps. This was the era of the “artists of steel” – a few skilful craftsmen who hand-engraved the steel dies of intaglio stamps at the Note Printing Branch, Melbourne. Hunched over the die, the engraver had to cut the stamp design into the steel’s surface, making cuts as shallow as one 500th of a millimetre and engraving the design in reverse! The extraordinary skills of hand engraving on steel, an art no longer practised in Australia, are celebrated in this exhibition. This is a Post Master Gallery Exhibition.