Monthly Archive for August, 2009

Enoch Taylor shoe gauge

Published by Melanie Pitkin 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Collection, Powerhouse Museum

Now that we have solved the Earoscope, it’s time for a new mystery object!

What you see above is part of a new acquisition from the Enoch Taylor & Co shoe archive.

From 1851-1970s, Enoch Taylor & Co specialised in the importation and manufacture of men’s, women’s and children’s shoes, first in Melbourne and then Sydney. From the 1970s they were exclusively producing boots and heavy duty footwear, including the T-Boot, at their Sydney warehouses. The company was managed by the Lee family from 1926-2004 and today it continues to operate in the hands of new owners.

The acquisition includes accounts ledgers, letterbooks, trademark certificates, photographs and shoes (both the finished product and those showing the different stages of shoe production), as well as this peculiar object.

Collection, Powerhouse Museum

So, what is it…?

Well, there are six separate metal pieces (five are made of brass) attached by a removable hinge and each piece is inscribed, as follows:

1. ‘ARMY STANDARD’
2. ‘3. 25. 40.’ on one side and ‘1 / 8’ and ‘86’ on the other
3. ‘3. 25. 40.’ on one side and ‘1 / 9’ and ‘STD’ on the other
4. ‘3. 25. 40’ on one side and ‘1 / 12’ and ‘STD’ on the other
5. ‘3. 25. 40’ on one side and ‘2 / 32’ and ‘STD’ on the other
6. ‘3. 25. 40’ on one side and ‘3 / 32’ and ‘STD’ on the other

The positioning of the grooves at the end of each metal piece is slightly different, which makes us think that this was possibly a gauge used for measuring the thickness of some part of a shoe, possibly the sole or leather used in the vamp or tongue? But, why would anyone need to know this?

Collection, Powerhouse Museum

Perhaps the inscription ‘ARMY STANDARD’ has something to do with it? This suggests that the object may have, in fact, been used as a device for ensuring that the strict army specifications placed on army boots were met, but what exactly were these specifications and how should we interpret those inscribed numbers mentioned above?

Has anyone seen anything like this before? I know of similar gauges to this used in the automotive industry, but have been unable to find examples for shoes. It’s over to you…

Atlassian come to perve

Published by Matthew Connell 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

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I love doing tours of our basement store but this one was especially gratifying. 24 programmers from Atlassian, the company that brings us Confluence and Jira amongst other programs, came to the museum for a bit of R and R.

They loved the tote (0ne of my personal favorites too!)DSC_0080

the first international telegraph cable, the slide rules, the Edison phonographs, the music box discs, and the Arithmometer (Which was the first commercial mechanical calculator in production for nearly 100 years)
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But what really set them off was the NeXT Cube, particulary the ports at the back.
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It’s the true belivers who check out the connections at the back (while claiming “This is nerd porn!”)

Photos courtesy of Seb Ruiz and Brendan Humphreys © All rights reserved.

The Bosdyk Dolls House- part two

Published by Lindie Ward 0 Comments Tags: , , , .
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Photography by Nitsa Yioupros,© Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved

Curators Lindie Ward and Margaret Simpson visited Frans Bosdyk at his home to find out more about the creation of his exquisite dolls house.

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Photography by Nitsa Yioupros,© Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved

Frans created most of the furniture for the dolls house himself, setting up a workshop in his garage.

He told us he encountered problems trying to buy the right kind of furniture for the project so he set about developing special lathes to turn the tiny wooden parts. He researched furniture styles in ‘Antique Furniture in Australia’ by Anthony Hill and then scaled the dimensions down to produce a miniature version. He also fashioned his own tiny hand tools from 75-100mm concrete nails to make it easier for him to handle the small pieces. He used silky oak, cedar, myrtle and blackwood which formed the 3mm floorboards throughout.

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Photography by Nitsa Yioupros,© Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved

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Photography by Nitsa Yioupros,© Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved

Frans was an electrician by trade, he researched how to make lights, lamps and electric sockets, from websites and publications from Europe and the US. And guess what? All the lights actually work!

Frans came into the Museum to give a lecture about his work, during which we all noticed that, to our amusement, the hands that created all the teeny tiny tools, furniture, and lighting, were huge!

Photography by Sotha Bourn © Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved.

Alastair Morrison

Published by Christina Sumner 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , .

Jain shrine donated by Alastair Morrison. Collection, Powerhouse Museum


Alastair Morrison, Life Fellow and great friend of the Powerhouse Museum, passed away on Tuesday 4 August, aged 93. Alastair was one of the Museum’s most consistent and generous donors over a long period of time, in particular with gifts to the Asian collections and working closely with curator Claire Roberts.

Most notable among his many gifts was an extensive collection of wonderful photographs by his wife Hedda Morrison, including many of her original prints; these document Beijing (then Peking) and China in the 1930s and 40s as well as Sarawak in north west Borneo where Alastair and Hedda lived for 19 years, until moving to Canberra in the late 1960s. Alastair also donated two large collections of mostly Indian and Nepali bronze figurines reflecting the Hindu, Jain and Buddhist philosophies, many of which are now on display at the Powerhouse Discovery Centre. And, in the last few months, we received a superb collection of early Sukothai and Sawankhalok (Thai) and Annamese (Vietnamese) ceramics of the 1400s and 1500s, which curator Min-Jung Kim is now documenting for acquisition.

A collector all his life, Alastair was also a writer and a scholar and his gifts to the Museum were accompanied by a range of books from his extensive research library to ours. Although, sadly, I never met Hedda Morrison, I was fortunate to meet and talk with Alastair many times and will always remember in particular his great flair as a story teller and the tantalising glimpses he gave us of a long and interesting life well lived.

His full obituary can be read in the Sydney Morning Herald here.

Christina Sumner
Principal Curator Design & Society

Ambrotype of the Premier of New South Wales Charles Cowper, 1859

Published by Geoff Barker 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Collection, Powerhouse Museum

This photograph is of Charles Cowper, the second Premier of New South Wales, and his ministry. Sometimes referred to as ‘Slippery Charlie’, Cowper appears to have lived up to his name as he was elected premier five times between 1856 and 1870. It is amazing that this relic of the State’s history has survived the past 150 years because it was made using the ‘ambrotype’ process which produced unique one-off photographs on a glass plate.

One reason it has survived is that it has spent most of its life with the family of Lawrence Hargrave before being donated to the museum in 1963. The reason for this is that Lawrence’s father J. F. Hargrave, who can be seen on the far left of this photograph, was a member of this short-lived ministry. The others, from left to right, are John Robertson (secretary for land and public works), Charles Cowper (premier), Elias Carpenter Weekes (colonial treasurer) and Lyttleton Holyoake Bayley (attorney general).

August 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of another Cowper ministry, that of the Reverend William Cowper, who became the minister of St. Phillip’s Sydney in 1809. If you are interested, St. Phillip’s are commemorating this event with two services – Sunday 16th August, 10AM, and Tuesday 18th August, 12 noon.

Paul Cocksedge- Fabergé of 21st century design?

Published by Eva Czernis-Ryl 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Photography by Sotha Bourn © Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved

Did you miss Paul Cocksedge’s talk at the Powerhouse Museum last Monday? If you did, and if you are interested in innovative and visually striking design with a touch of ‘magic’, I really recommend that you have a glimpse at his products and concepts. Variously referred to by critics as an artist-inventor, contemporary alchemist or design wizard, the multidisciplinary creations of this young London-based designer are truly awe-inspiring.

'Sapphire and Tonic' close up from the Blue Room‘Sapphire & Tonic’ close up from the Blue Room
Photography © Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved

I first saw his work in 2004 in the Blue Room, an exhibition of the best works from the Bombay Sapphire design glass competition (then in its 4th year) which began its international tour at the Powerhouse, fresh from its launch at the Milan fair. Cocksedge’s intriguing light ‘Sapphire & Tonic’ displayed in its own dark room was a definite highlight – it glowed a most beautiful blue, but had no visible source of electricity. It was a UV light from a nearby source that released the blue hue from the work’s major ingredient: gin and tonic! Only 3 years from London’s Royal College of Art where he studied product design under Ron Arad, Cocksedge was already a winner of the 2003 Bombay Sapphire Prize for his energy-saving ‘NeOns’ filled with natural gas and powered by an electrical current. He was just nominated for the Design Museum’s Designer of the Year (2004) and had displayed his lights in exhibitions by Issey Miyake and that German lighting maestro Ingo Maurer.

NEONS‘NeOns’ by Paul Cocksedge
Image courtesy of Design Museum.org

Cocksedge’s fascination with everyday materials as conductors of electricity and his interest in the emotional side of lighting and design resulted in a range of unusual objects from a lamp that conveys the idea of light as ‘breath’, to another lamp that can be turned off by rubbing away a pencil line drawn on attached paper (graphite is an electrical conductor), to my favourite ‘Bulb’, a transparent glass vase with a metal rim and water: when a flower is placed in the vase, water becomes light – caused by electricity flow through it and up the flower stem. ‘Bulb’ makes me think of Fabergé’s exquisite gold and jade dandelion, and the Russian jeweller’s other dewy flowers in rock-crystal vases that ‘magically’ transported their lucky owners to summer gardens during long Russian winters.

bulb-1‘Bulb’ now produced for Flos under the name ‘Life 01′
Image courtesy of Inhabitat

Among the most recent concepts of the Paul Cocksedge Studio is a sensational umbrella replacement, ‘Rain it in’, that uses static electricity to make water bend away from objects or people, including bike riders. Fascinated by technology, Cocksedge seemlessly merges it with design, constantly pushing boundaries. He talks about design experiences and events rather than products. Not unlike Fabergé’s exquisitely crafted flowers and his famous surprise Easter eggs, his ideas and solutions instil a sense of wonder.

These days Cocksedge’s name appears in exhibitions alongside those of such design masters as Ron Arad, Tom Dixon and Zaha Hadid and he also has an impressive list of clients. When I asked him last week if there had been any decisive moments or breakthrough projects in his career that brought him to where he is now, he said he was “not there yet”. Well, it is only a matter of time! Do check out his work and judge for yourself.

Eva Czernis-Ryl
Curator, Decorative Arts and Design

Meet the curator- Lindie Ward

Published by Lindie Ward 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Photography by Marinco Kojdanovski © Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved

Name
Lindie Ward

What is your specialty area?
Textiles, lace, dress and shoes.

How long have you been working at the Museum?
Since 1990.

What is your favourite object in the collection?
Very hard to answer. Often an object is really memorable when you uncover its story – a bit like a treasure hunt! I have always had a soft spot for an anonymous, but exquisite, Art Deco beaded bag in the collection and was thrilled to discover, on the web, that it was very rare and designed by Maria Likarz-Strauss, an important Austrian designer of the Vienna workshops whose work was not represented in our collection. Another favourite is the Bosdyk dolls house I recently acquired. Everyone is excited by its 20 rooms and 2,000 meticulous pieces that took 8 years to make!

What piece of research or exhibition are you most proud of in your career at the Museum?
Through curatorial work and exhibitions you are continually being educated, in the most interesting way, about fascinating people and about our history. After a while, isolated pieces of information start to join together into a wonderful, connected whole. A recent project that has been most rewarding is the Australian Dress Register, which will document dress in regional and private collections in New South Wales. Through this team project we have developed a wide range of web resources to assist those working in regional museums and galleries, advising how to assess significance, care for, photograph and display costume in collections. The satisfaction with this project comes from setting up a formula that can be useful well into the future and will document community history.

Elephants in the Colony

Published by Erika Taylor 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Collection, Powerhouse Museum

The new baby elephant at Taronga Zoo has had me ‘oooing’ and ‘ahhhing’ all week, it also reminded me of a letter we have in our collection written in 1805 by William Charles Wentworth (of Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth fame). The letter was sent from London to Charles’ father D’Arcy who was then Superintendent of Convicts on Norfolk Island. Charles had been sent to London to complete his education and this letter describes his delight at the elephant in Pidcocks Exhibition of Wild Beasts.

“….. I was very much amused, particularly at Pidcocks Exhibition of Wild Beasts several of which are natives of New South Wales but of all the beasts the Elephant is the most wonderful. He will unbolt doors, tell how many people are in the room, take of a persons hat and put it on again, pick up a Lock and put it into a man’s hand, blow a shilling to him at a considerable distance with his trunk, pick it up and put into the man’s pocket, kneel at the word of command, and many other wonderful things too troublesome to relate”

The letter is written in lovely copperplate handwriting, although Charles does have to squish his letters together to fit his last words on a line.

This object is also important as a rare example of personal correspondence in the colony.

“From 1788-1809 there were no organised postal arrangements for New South Wales. In the early years of the settlement, mails were made up for England and usually contained official correspondence which was sent free. Some convicts who were literate and the growing number of free settlers also sent mails which were usually entrusted to the captains of ships and charged one penny. This is probably how Wentworth’s letter was conveyed to his father as it bears no postal markings. Abuses are recorded such as gross overcharging (particularly of parcels) and withholding the mails. It was not until 1809 that Isaac Nichols was appointed Postmaster and some attempt made to regulate postal matters.”

For me it is warmth and personal nature of this letter that gives it it’s charm. Our attitudes to circus animals have changed but we are still as delighted by the exotic (and now endangered) elephant as William Charles Wentworth in 1805.

Full transcript

Dear Father,
I take this opportunity of writing a few lines by Mr Grimes to inform you that I am in good health and it will give the greatest pleasure to hear that you and my Brother are the same. I am now in Town at Mr Cookney’s where I am very happy. I went last Monday to Colonel Feauveux’s where he told me that you and my Brother were in good health and at Norfolk Island when he saw you last. I have already seen the Theatre Royal Hay Market, St Pauls, Pidcocks exhibition, the Bay of Gibrathar, the Battle of Agincourt and these two pictures being Panoramas where I was very much amused particularly at Pidcocks Exhibition of Wild Beasts several of which are natives of New South Wales but of all the beasts the Elephant is the most wonderful he will unbolt doors, tell how many people are in the room, take of a Persons Hat and put it on again, pick up a Lock and put it into a Man’s Hand blow a Shilling to him at a considerable distance with his trunk, pick it up and put into the Man’s pocket, kneel at the Word of Command and many other wonderful things too troublesome to relate. With best duty and love dear father I remain your dutiful son,
WC Wentworth
July 14th 1805

Lynne McNairn
Registrar