Artist-author Robert Ingpen has been a Geelong fixture, and treasure, for years. His adventure tale The Voyage of the Poppykettle and its tiny hairy Peruvians sojourners has been an institution for generations of schoolkids.

His striking artwork, published around the world for decades, has plumbed everything from myths and fairy tales to historical accounts, children’s classics, popular fiction and Geelong heritage.

Ingpen’s hawk-like draughtsman’s eye for detail, his expertise with pen, brush and watercolour has created thousands of evocative works.

His charming use of the tale of the Geelong Keys found in the 1840s at Limeburners Point in his Poppykettle and subsequent Poppykettle Papers books is a masterly blend of fiction, legend and mystery.

Ingpen’s Corio Bay, You Yangs and sheoak backdrop artwork, which he told me was taken from the vantage point of a large tree in Eastern Park – one where my kids once played on its ancient stump – is both subtle, evocative and beautiful.

Likewise, three special prints this newspaper published for a Regional Dailies of Australia conference some years ago:

• The Geelong Club has been a Brougham Street institution since 1889, with even earlier connections before it settled in its surviving location.
• Lincoln’s Place, a pioneer homestead outside Portarlington, is taken from the book of the same name by Ingpen with Storm Boy author Colin Thiele.
• Barwon Grange, a National Trust property on the Barwon at Newtown, built in 1851.

Typical of Ingpen’s illustrations, his handiwork imbues these heritage subjects with a warmth and clarity, and just a sniff of the mysterious about their interiors and their attendant tales.

The paintings, dating back to the 1970s, are time capsule stuff capturing a point in time that will become more historically important as they age.

Lincoln’s Farm, for instance, is in far more ramshackle condition today than when penned by Ingpen. The Geelong Club, similarly, looks more time-ravaged today than in this tree-fronted depiction. The aged Barwon Grange, for its part, appears the best preserved.

Looming longevity issues notwithstanding, Ingpen’s clever brush and penmanship provide a beauty that many photographs, colour or black and white, are unable to portray.

This article appeared in the Geelong Advertiser 30 January 2023