Pedder. The Story. The Paintings.

This book, by renowned Tasmanian painter Max Angus, celebrates the beautiful Tasmanian lake that was flooded to create a hydro-electric dam in 1972. The battle to save the lake ultimately failed, but not before it gave rise to a strong conservation movement that was able to save the Franklin and Gordon rivers from the same fate a few years later.

Max first painted at Lake Pedder in 1953, and when this book was published, he was 94 and still painting Pedder. His paintings of Lake Pedder are keenly sought-after, and this book brings together thirty of them, generously loaned by collectors around Australia. The book is also illustrated with photographs and sketches from those magic days in the 50s and 60s when artists, photographers and their families gathered for summers that they thought would never end.

To capture the ethereal beauty of the lake, I used a translucent dust jacket over the hardcover, both printed in full colour, to creat the effect of the shimmering lake surface above the depths in the painting.

In the Tasmania Book Prizes 2011, Pedder was shortlisted to the final three for the University of Tasmania Prize for the best book by a Tasmanian publisher.