Rosemary Dobson AO (1920-2012), poet, translator, editor and writer, published her first book of poetry in 1944, while she was working as an editor at Angus and Robertson in Sydney. She continued to write over seven decades, her poems characteristically meditating upon themes of art, antiquity and mythology as well as motherhood, family and friendship. Between 1970 and 1975 she produced not only a book of poems, but a critical volume on the art of Ray Crooke, a treatise on Australian painting in the 1940s, and a collaborative translation of the Russian poets Anna Akhmatova and Osip Mandelstam. Her fourteenth collection of poetry was published in 2000. Several of her earlier books were published by Brindabella Press, owned and run by her late husband Alec Bolton. When Bolton left the publishing firm to become Director of Publications at the National Library, the couple moved to Canberra, where Dobson lived until her death.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of Rex Dupain 2003
Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program
© Max Dupain/Copyright Agency, 2022
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