AustLit

The first issue of the Home appeared in February 1920. Published by Art in Australia Ltd, the Home was aimed at the Australian market of middle-class women readers to help underwrite the publication of Art in Australia and other publishing projects. Initially produced by a team of editors, including Sydney Ure Smith (art editor), Bertram Stevens (literary editor) and Julia Lister (fashion editor), the Home suffered early losses, but strengthened to provide the financial stability required by Art in Australia Ltd.

The Home is widely admired for its role in the development of graphic art and advertising in Australian magazines, particularly the influence of its magazine covers. Often proclaiming to be 'modern', the magazine did not, however, embrace all contemporary developments in modern art, rejecting techniques such as cubism, futurism and surrealism. Nevertheless, discussion of modern technology and architecture, and the magazine's role in advertising and cover art gave the magazine a very modern appearance for its time.

Combined with Sydney Ure Smith's advertising connections, the Home and Art in Australia developed a significant network of associates in graphic arts, advertising, printing and publishing. Seizing on this potential, the magazine was bought (with Art in Australia) by the Fairfax press in 1934 to challenge magazines such as Vogue and Fashion and Society. Ure Smith and Leon Gellert were retained as editors, but after the magazines failed to live up to Fairfax's expectations, Ure Smith retired to pursue other projects. Gellert remained as editor until the Home ceased publication in 1942.

While not often recognised for its literary content, the Home published the work of many of Australia's leading writers. Contributors included Dorothea Mackellar, Furnley Maurice, Nettie Palmer, Norman Lindsay, Lionel Lindsay, Joan Lindsay, Kenneth Slessor, Mary Gilmore, Arthur Adams and David Unaipon. Katharine Susannah Prichard's novel The Wild Oats of Han was serialised in Home during 1926 and 1927. The magazine also printed articles on a number of Australian writers and artists, including Norman Lindsay, Barbara Baynton, Will Dyson, George Lambert, Margaret Preston and Hans Heysen.