1970s greetings from North Eastern Victoria

FEWER CHANCES TO FIND INTERESTING GREETING CARDS IN OP SHOPS, but here is a lovely set with a number of interesting features.

This lovely series of cards called The Bush Track Australia Series, possibly 10 in the series. I have #1, 7, 9-10. The covers are reproductions of paintings by Marcus L. O’Donnell. All of the reproductions  are signed and two are dated, 1969. This suggests that the series was published at least post 1969.

Young painter of promise

AT John A. Hogan’s attractive little gallery in Glenferrie rd (cor. Malvern rd). Malvern, is an exhibition of water-colours by Marcus L. O’Donnell, a young artist who taught himself to paint during seven years of war service in the AIF and is now living in the hill country below Mt Buffalo. He is showing paintings of tropical scenes in brilliant colours, snow scenes, rural landscapes, and

Victorian coastal scenes. All are painted with refinement and artistry and a good eye for colour. With more intensive study of drawing and more freedom in his brushwork, Mr O’Donnell should attain a high place among Australian water-colour painters.

Marcus O’Donnell seems to have been a convert to the high country. His father, a station master was based in Kilcunda, in Gippsland, when Marcus was born at nearby Daylston.

This lovely scene shows a beautiful foreground of local flora with some kangaroos hopping through the hills.

The cards were part of a series and the ‘logo’ for the Bush Track series shows an indigenous family group with spears, boomerang and baby in a back pouch.

The cards were published in Porepunkah by Markdon Prints. Note the indigenous stylised indigenous animals. They cards were printed by Pryor Printing Service, Wangaratta. The company was incorporated in May 1950.

The other two cards I have are a moonlight scene of a small town – ‘Mt. Bogong and Mt. Beauty Township’ and a horse drawn mail carriage with a mountain background – ‘Mt. Feathertop and the Road to Harrietville’.

If anyone can throw more light on Marcus L. O’Donnell or Markdon Prints, please let me know via the Comments’ section below.

Mandy Bede