This small display from the National Art Archive at the Art Gallery of New South Wales shines a light on a magazine devoted to art, writing and music that circulated among Sydney’s arts community from 1924 to 1929 – a defining era in Australian visual culture.

Titled Undergrowth: a magazine of youth and ideals, the publication began as a hand-typed newsletter for the Sydney Art Students’ Club but grew into a professionally printed magazine for a much wider audience, with articles, stories, plays, poems, original linocuts and woodcuts.

Helmed by Nancy A Hall and Heliodore ‘Dore’ Hawthorne, Undergrowth became a forum of debate and support for modern art in Sydney. The magazine gave young women artists an unprecedented platform for their voices and work, with contributions from students as well as more established writers and artists, including Dorrit Black, Grace Crowley, Anne Dangar, Margaret Preston, Thea Proctor and Roland Wakelin.

The Art Gallery’s holdings represent the most complete collection in Australia of this rare publication.