Design and Art Australia Online

wood engraver, was a native of Solothurn, Switzerland who came to Victoria about 1855. Details of his early career are unknown, but at least by 1861 he appears to have been employed as a wood-engraver by Frederick Grosse at 62 Collins Street East, Melbourne. A patent for printing line drawings by a technique called Bismuthography was granted to Frederick Grosse and Rudolph Jenny on 16 February that year. Jenny succeeded to Grosse’s business following the latter’s appointment to the Government Printing Office in June 1868.

Jenny engraved for most of the illustrated periodicals published in Melbourne as well as illustrating several books. He also engraved cartoons (many after Thomas Carrington ) for Melbourne Punch and Tasmanian Punch , including the lithographic cover used on the latter from 1/4 (25 August 1877) and reused by Craig (1980) as the cover of his history. Jenny received awards for his wood engravings at the 1880 and 1888 Melbourne International Exhibitions. Although admitted to membership of the Victorian Artists’ Society in November 1888, he never exhibited there and resigned in January 1899. Apart from his reputation as a reproductive wood-engraver, Jenny is best known for a series of fine engravings of Melbourne suburbs published as supplements to the Australasian Sketcher in the 1870s. Some bear the initials of Albert C. Cooke , who may have drawn them all.

Jenny was the last of the classical European-trained wood-engravers in Melbourne. The advent of photochemical reproduction of line drawings in the 1890s eventually rendered their work commercially obsolete. He died at 20 Berry Street, East Melbourne on 22 January 1905 and was buried in the Boroondarra Cemetery, Kew. His estate was sworn at £11,280, the bulk of which was willed to various charitable institutions.

Writers:

Darragh, Thomas A.

Date written:

1992

Last updated:

2011