Rosaleen Norton, or "the witch of Kings Cross" was born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1917, moving with her family to Sydney in 1925. She was a trailblazing woman, and her cultural importance is much under-appreciated.
Living free from societal expectations she was not only a witch, but also openly bisexual and a thorn in the side of the then predominantly Christian Australia. As is always the way with outsiders and people who don't conform, she was attacked by the media for her art, her beliefs, her lifestyle, and sometimes, her appearance. She experienced police surveillance and faced obscenity charges over her art. Norton defied cultural norms and, though she did not identify as a feminist, was a powerfully unconventional woman.
As a child Rosaleen felt she was different—and felt compelled to prove this. As her friend and biographer Nevill Drury later recalled:
'Rosaleen reveled in being the odd one out, purporting to despise her schoolmates. She argued continuously with her mother. She ‘hated’ authority figures like headmistresses, policemen, politicians and priests. She had no time at all for organised religion, and the gods she embraced - a cluster of ancient gods centered around Pan - were, of course, pagan to the hilt.... She was different in an age when it was quite a lot harder to be different than it is now. She was bohemian, bisexual, outspoken, rebellious and thoroughly independent in an era when most young ladies growing up on Sydney’s North Shore would be thinking simply of staying home, happily married with a husband and children. Rosaleen was not afraid to say what she thought, draw her pagan images on city pavements, or flaunt her occult beliefs in the pages of the tabloids. To most people who read about her in newspapers and magazines she was simply outrageous.'
She was expelled from school for terrifying her classmates with drawings of vampires, pentagrams and demons during art class. In 1952, when a collection of her work was first published in book form as The Art of Rosaleen Norton, three of the images 'Black Magic' 'Rites of Baron Samedi' and 'Fohat' caused such offence that the publisher was prosecuted for obscenity and the pictures removed from all future printings. In America the book was deemed so pornographic that all imported copies were destroyed by custom officials.
In 2020 a film was released - 'The Witch of Kings Cross is a cinema length hybrid documentary set in the occult subculture of 1950's Sydney. The film explores the life, work and beliefs of the most persecuted, prosecuted and daring female artist in Australian history – Rosaleen Norton. Presented like a rock doco, it’s a collage of art, artefacts, archive, interview and expressionistic drama. Scenes are played out on the stage of an ‘otherworld’ nightclub where erotic dancers play mythic Gods and Goddesses.'
Unfortunately, Norton will go down in history as a crackpot witch due to the usual media lust for headlines, but she was so much more than that. When we look closer at a woman reviled by the media, we see a groundbreaking bohemian, committed to living freely on her own terms, who challenged censorship and indeed, the establishment.
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