AUSTRALIAN CHRISTMAS

When looking for Christmas foreign stamps, I came across this artist, who happened to die on Christmas day 2019  at the age of 99.  

LEOPOLDINE POLDI MIMOVICH was born in 1920 and grew up in the village of Sankt Johann in the Pongau region of Austria (now a part of Italy). Her father was an artist and she learned much from working with him.  Her first husband, who she met at age 16, died in the war. 

She studied sculpting in Vienna and then later at the School of Wood Sculpture in Hallstatt from 1943 to 1949. She married Ljubisa (Leo) Mimovich, a Serbian, who had been held in a prisoner of war camp near Leopoldine's village. When the couple were married Leopoldine lost her Austrian citizenship and so had to emigrate. 

She and Lou initially applied to migrate to America, where her aunt was living. Their application took so long to process, they applied to migrate to Australia. They had one daughter, Gabrielle.

Arriving in Melbourne, after much difficulty, Leopoldine went to work in a shirt factory and Lou at Hoffman's brickworks. Leopoldine then moved to Myer department store where she worked in the furniture carving department for a number of years.  During this time she also began doing commissioned carvings. Throughout this time she found the industry to discriminate against women, whose work was less respected and financially undervalued.

Leopoldine and Leo finally purchased a house in the Melbourne eastern suburbs where she set up her studio and undertook commissions which reflected her Austrian traditions and Catholic background.

Over time her work evolved into a more impressionistic, free- flowing form, adopting local materials such as Huon pine.  When she could no longer sculpt in her late 80s she took up painting icons which she was able to do into her mid 90s.  Her works are represented in numerous churches and public buildings around the country.

Her crucifixes grace the walls of the Mawson Inter-Denominational chapel in the Antarctic and the United Nations building in New York. Other works are in England, the United States, Germany, Japan, Korea, Honolulu and New Guinea.

In these joyous paintings, the traditional Christmas story of the birth of Christ is presented in an Australian setting, complete with a rich array of native flora and fauna. 

The 65c stamp shows a calmly Madonna and Child amid the colorful Australian bush and an array of native flora, including Banksia wattle, eucalypt and waratah. 

Various animals, such as a magpie. kookaburra, owl, koala, possum, wallaby, sulphur-crested cockatoo, and parrots are perched in the foliage, paying homage to the Christ Child. 

The international stamp, $2.60, shows the more domestic scene of Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus. Their setting suggests the manger but, instead of the traditional cattle and sheep, they are surrounded  by native animals and their young in the bush.

It was fun for me to see the birds and animals I had seen in the wild some 15 years ago.