The Art of Rosaleen Norton...

We had a bit of a coup in the shop this week – a very rare arcane text fell into our lap and negotiations have begun in earnest to secure a deal with the owner for us to sell it on their behalf. The book in question is The Art of Rosaleen Norton, which may sound a bit prosaic, but this is one of Australia’s most controversial Twentieth Century publications. A very small number of these books were produced and most of them where destroyed by zealous censors, which means that when surviving copies are located, they are eagerly snapped up.

Rosaleen Norton was born in Dunedin to Australian ex-pat immigrants. She was the youngest of three sisters and definitely the black sheep of her family. Enduring a contentious existence with her mother, she fled the family unit as soon as possible (after they had re-located once more to Sydney) and set about trying to discover her purpose.

She worked initially as an artist’s model, posing for Norman Lindsay amongst others, and travelled through a strange miscellany of other jobs before settling in King’s Cross and working as an illustrator for a magazine called “Smith’s Weekly”. During this time she read widely on subjects esoteric and became inspired by the teachings of that perennial snake-oil salesman, Aleister Crowley. Eventually, she codified her own system of pagan worship, a syncretric system infusing modern notions of witchcraft with elements of Qliphothic Cabbalism, Gnosticism and the sex-magic of Crowley’s Thelemite teachings. She became notorious as “The Witch of the Cross”, using her ‘powers’ to cast spells for clients and to undertake various ‘magickal workings’.

Her lifestyle was constantly coming under investigation by the Powers That Were: Sydney in the 1940s and 1950s was not a place to conduct a bohemian sort of existence without scrutiny. Although she and her lover, Gavin Greenlees, maintained good relations with the local constabulary, there were times when calls to ‘clean up the ‘Cross’ saw her home invaded by officialdom looking for easy targets in order to score points with Joe Public, and the pair were often pilloried in the Press. A short escape to Melbourne where an exhibition of Rosaleen’s art was shut down by a charge of indecency, saw them return to Sydney with their tails between their legs.

Perhaps the biggest scandal to strike Norton came from her liaison with acclaimed British musical conductor Sir Eugene Goossens. Along with Greenlees, he became Norton’s lover and partner in her sexual sorcery. Upon his return from an overseas holiday, he was found to have a bundle of pornographic material in his luggage and he was forced to return to England in disgrace. Blame for the episode was placed squarely on Norton’s influence.

Norton approached publisher Walter Glover with the idea of creating a book of her illustrations which would also serve to outline the essence of her magical thinking. The result of this collaboration was the 1952 release, The Art of Rosaleen Norton, a collection of turgid, magically explicative poetry by Gavin Greenlees, profusely illustrated by Norton. During production of the book, Greenlees had a mental breakdown and was hospitalised, being diagnosed with schizophrenia, and Norton finished off most of the poems, editing them for production.

“The Adversary”

Inevitably, the book was met with opprobrium. Claims of obscenity were soon levelled at it, its creator and publisher, and it was removed from sale. Hoping to recoup some of his outlay for the project, Glover sent a large number of copies to the US, at that time seemingly less willing to proscribe published material as forcibly as Australia; however, the book was deemed pornographic and the shipment was burned. Thereafter, a court case ruled that the work could be sold directly by the publisher, as long as the two plates which caused most offense – entitled “The Adversary” and “Fohat”, respectively - were effaced by means of a black ink roller at the point of sale. Glover was, apparently, less than punctilious about performing this duty, if the customer was someone known to him and trusted by him not to ‘talk out of school’; but still, many extant copies of the book have ugly black squares obscuring the artwork.

“Fohat”

In terms of numbers, only 1,000 copies of the book were printed (and there is a question over whether even this many were actually produced). Of these, there was a limited, red-leather-bound run of around 350 copies and 650 red cloth-bound copies, most of which were burnt in America. As can be seen, finding copies in any sort of condition – with dustwrapper or without – is very difficult, and consequently prices are high.

The fate of those who embark upon a life of esoteric investigation and the consequent notoriety which it brings is not pretty. Most magical practitioners tend to fade away into poverty and disgrace, finally dying alone and penniless in abject squalor. This happened to Crowley and it happened likewise to Rosaleen Norton. She lived out her life squatting in a condemned building in King’s Cross, and living off her notoriety and the ‘spells’ she would cast for those willing to pay for the service. In 1964 she was attacked by Greenlees who had been released prematurely from care and who went straight back to institutionalisation before being released permanently in 1983, four years after Norton’s death. Norton herself died of colon cancer in 1979. Since then several books and theatre pieces have been made about her life, along with re-releases of her most notorious work.

Norton’s work has been compared favourably with the art of Austin Osman Spare and Norman Lindsay, and there is much to recommend her style. Her draughtsmanship is precise and her compositions are tight with a strong erotic overtone, lending a certain frisson to their otherwise heavily-symbolic formalism. There is little in them that would cause outrage these days and an uncensored re-issue of the book in the 1980s hardly caused a murmur.

There is another reason that I’m bringing this work to the attention of readers: it’s the dedication page of this book. To be clear, I’ve known that this book exists for quite awhile now, but I’ve never actually seen, or held a copy before now. Greenlees’ poetry is pretty deathless and stultifying, it has to be said, but the real reason for diving in between these covers is the artwork, which is the fundamental raison d’être of this book. Imagine my surprise then, when I read the inscription on the dedications page:

Obviously (possibly), Norton was a Robert W. Chambers fan at some point in her life, or else this is some other “King in Yellow”. Regardless, I’ve discovered I have an affinity with the crazy lady with the “Impossible Man” eyebrows and the enamelled lips!

Incidentally, if anyone out there is ready and willing to pony up the AUD$1,200 to buy our copy of this book, leave a comment below!