Hidden treasures and stories from our collection
Over the last six months or so the Powerhouse Museum has been going through a major revitalisation project. One result of all this activity has been the opening up of some large exhibition spaces. Given International Museums Day is just around the corner and the current level of interest within the museum surrounding exhibition development I thought it could be an opportune time to blog about this vital area of museum work and see how museums in general have been approaching the issue.
Drinking cup, used by James Calvert. on Leichhardt’s expedition from Brisbane to Port Essington,1844 -1845, Powerhouse Museum, NN10265
It may be hard to imagine now, but once this cup must have been one of the most important things in the life of James Snowden Calvert. Around 165 years ago this cup travelled with Calvert and Leichhardt on the first overland trip from Brisbane on the east coast of Australia to Port Essendon on the west coast. On this trip across the dry and dusty interior water was often in short supply and the ration handed out to Calvert in this cup must have been one of the highlights of each day. Perhaps this was the reason he kept the cup as a memento of the hardships they shared on this, the first of Leichhardt’s expeditions.
Continue reading ‘An Australian relic from Leichhardt’s exploration of the interior’
This is a portrait of Signor Edoardo Majeroni who, with his wife, presented stage performances in theatres across Australia in 1876 and the 1880s. In this image he is dressed in a Russian military costume for his acclaimed role in a one-act play entitled ‘The Old Corporal’ The play was performed in Sydney in 1876 and the photograph appears to have been taken by the Freeman Brothers Studio while the performances were fresh in the minds of Sydney-siders.
Continue reading ‘Edoardo Majeroni – Italian ‘red shirt’ and Australian actor’
Lightning strikes on the Sydney Harbour, 7 December, 1892. The photograph was exposed over four minutes giving an impression of five separate strikes. Government Astronomer H C Russell calculated the height of the Darling Harbour flash from the cloud to the water to be approximately 1540 feet.
Lieutenant William Dawes, who came out to Australia with the First Fleet, made the first recorded meteorological observations in Australia but the next set were probably made from Parramatta Observatory between October 1822 and March 1824.
Continue reading ‘World Meteorological Day – early meteorology in Australia’
Moulin Rouge, Sydney Premiere Ensemble, Powerhouse Museum, 2011.43.54
This ‘Object of the Day’ outfit is from a collection of high-end International and Australian designed clothing and accessories from Catherine Martin’s personal wardrobe. Acquired in 2011, by curator Glynis Jones, the outfit consists of an overdress with separate slip, a jacket and a shawl. It was designed and made by Australian fashion designer, Collette Dinnigan, in Sydney, Australia. The shoes were designed by Jimmy Choo, London, and made in Italy.
When compared with the Powerhouse Museum’s ripe old age of 133 years, the Powerhouse Discovery Centre can definitely be considered to be a much younger sibling, but the team of staff and volunteers from the Discovery Centre are very excited to be celebrating our fifth birthday on Saturday 10th March.
Postcard, young men with snowmen, addressed to Mrs. W. Hall, West Maitland, New South Wales, photographic print, Australia, 1905
‘In these degenerate days of postcards and typewriters letter writing has become for many almost a lost art and Lord Chesterfield’s ‘Letters to His Son’ would probably nowadays be dictated to a shorthand writer transcribed on a billboard and sent through the post …’ The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 January 1895.
Although critical of the picture postcard trade the above quotation in fact makes it clear why they were so popular. Not only were they cheap to buy, and quick to be delivered, the limited space for writing democratised the educated and elitist letter writing styles that preceded it. The other major factor in ensuring their popularity was the mass production of millions of cards from the printing presses in Austria and Germany, where the trade in pictorial postcards had begun in 1869.
Picture Postcard, mailed to Linda Hall, New South Wales, 1910
If you have just sent a picture postcard to someone for Valentine’s Day you may, or may not, be aware you are part of a tradition stretching back over one hundred years. Picture postcards first appeared around 1869 and from then on the ‘Valentines Day’ card, I thought, had been a yearly success story for the commercial printer.
It seems however there was an outbreak of “vulgar” postcards around 1910 that both shocked straight laced Australian society, and threatened to make the “Valentine’s Day card extinct…”
All this was news to me as most of the postcards I had seen from this period were very tame, like the one above. But there appears to have been a sub-genre of a more controversial type, which, while presumably tame by our standards, were vilified in the following text by Tasmania’s ‘Examiner’ …
“Few crazes have had such a successful run as the picture postcard, and the reason of its long hold upon the public favour is that it combines a considerable element of usefulness with a large degree of beauty and art. But the picture postcard has been abused, and things have come to a critical pass when we find the Postcard Traders Association of the United Kingdom solemnly debating the future of the card, and wondering whether it is to share the fate of the Valentine, which, once a very profitable article of commerce has become practically extinct.
Vulgarity killed the popularity of the Valentine, and it may do the same for the picture postcard. In Launceston as in other centres, “few people can be unaware of the objectionable types of card that are upon the market and that are sometimes flaunted before their eyes in the windows of establishments of a certain type, and, in front of which it is not a nice sight to see young people gloating over the suggestiveness of this sort of picture postcard, some of them on the very borderland of obscenity. It is not a healthy public taste and is one that it were well to discourage. It is some satisfaction therefore to know that in their own interest the postcard traders of the. ‘Old Country’ have taken up the question.
That ‘they recognise the evil is evident from the fact that they passed a resolution pledging the association to take all legitimate steps to suppress objectionable postcards. One speaker went so far as to say ‘that the postcard trade had become disgusting and offensive in the eyes of the public. That is strong language, but no doubt the circumstances warranted it. A man does not usually make such comments on his own line of business unless there is some grave reason for it. There is a great deal of pleasure as well as practical utility in the picture postcard, and it would be a pity-to see ft pass into utter disrepute simply because of its adaptation to the baser thoughts of man and woman kind.
The postal authorities can do a great deal in the way of censorship, but that is not enough, for many a card is published that could never pass the postal scrutiny. It could only get through within the shelter of an envelope, or be circulated in other ways. In some Australian centres the police have taken action in the matter, and admittedly it is an evil aspect in a legitimate and desirable business that ought, if possible, to be suppressed. It is something to know that traders themselves are realising the evil of it.”
Given the tameness of the Valentine’s Day card above it’s hard to imagine the shocking ‘evil’ invading genteel Australian Society around 1910. Perhaps someone else has seen Australian examples of of this sub-genre of cards?
Geoff Barker, Curatorial
References
Examiner, Launceston, Tasmania, 24 November 1908, page 4
Sextant, used by Phillip Parker King, made by Matthew Berge, London, England, 1805-1819
Like many early scientific instruments that made their way to Australia this particular sextant is doubly significant. For while it played an important role in Australia’s early colonial history it was also manufactured by one of the foremost instrument makers of the early 19th century.
It was made by Matthew Berge an apprentice of the famed London scientific instrument maker Jesse Ramsden and is signed ‘Berge late Ramsden”. The reason for the two names being that Matthew took over running the shop when Ramsden died in 1800 and the instruments he produced bore both names prior to Berge himself dying in 1819.
One of the secrets to Ramsden’s success was his invention of a dividing machine which allowed makers to cut very fine graduations into their instruments. Berge appears to have used Ramsden’s dividing engine to create the amazingly detailed silver scale on this small instrument. Another feature of this sextant is a foot for the pillar stand on the exterior of its wooden box and the black finish used to lower the reflections. All of which suggest the instrument was made a few years before Berge’s death in 1819.
Phillip Parker King, engraving from Picturesque Atlas of Australasia, Vol. 2, Sydney, 1886
Another reason this navigating instrument is so significant is because it is one of a number of items acquired by the Museum from relatives of Governor King. We originally believed it belonged to Governor Philip Gidley King but as King had retired as Governor in 1804, and was so ill he had to delay his trip back to England (where he died in 1808), it seems more likely that it was purchased by his son Phillip Parker King in London around 1817 for his surveying expedition of the western coast of Australia. If this is the case then this instrument played a pivotal role in this surveying project and King certainly looked after this little instrument remarkably well considering its many years at sea.
As a native born son P. P. King played as important a role in the development of New South Wales as his father Governor Philip Gidley King. He was born on Norfolk Island in 1791 to Philip Gidley King’s legal wife Anna and after the family returned to England in 1796 joined the Royal Navy in 1897. When his father and mother returned to New South Wales P.P. King stayed in England but fate was to bring him back to Australia when, in 1817, the navy decided to survey the western coast of Australia and perhaps due to his links to the country appointed King, now a lieutenant, to the task.
He arrived in Sydney in September 1817 and by December had embarked on an especially fitted out cutter, the ‘Mermaid’, to the North West Cape where the survey was to begin. Returning to Sydney in 1820 for repairs the ship was completely submerged in attempt to rid the decks of both cockroaches and rats. In 1821, after being promoted to commander, King made a survey of northern Australia in the “Bathurst”. He briefly returned to Sydney in April 1822 before being recalled to England where he became the English representative of the Australian Agricultural Co. and becoming a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
In 1826 he published his ‘Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia’ which was partly illustrated with his own sketches. The wanderlust apparently continued to beckon King as in May of the same year he took command of H.M.S. ‘Adventure’ which sailed with H.M.S. ‘Beagle’ (whose company included Charles Darwin) to chart the coasts of Peru, Chile and Patagonia. He returned in 1830 in poor health but now promoted to captain, and a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council, to which he was appointed in absentia. We are not sure but it is possible that this little sextant survived all King’s journeys, and the fact it is in such good condition may be due in some part to the exquisitely made wooden case which traces the contours of the instrument as well as providing a base once set up.
King returned to New South Wales in 1832 but had to wait until 1839 to get a seat on the Council, ironically he was soon after appointed resident commissioner of the Australian Agricultural Co. (AAC) and had to resign this seat. King continued to do valuable survey work in the colony recording his observations in the Murrumbidgee, visiting New Zealand and Norfolk Island in the Pelorus, and surveying the area around Parramatta, Newcastle and Port Stephens. Over the same period the AAC tried to establish monopolies on coal and sell wool but its main investments were tied up in land grants and these were eventually freed up for sale between 1845 and 1847. King was a well respected figure by this time and when the Parramatta Observatory was scheduled for closure it was done so on the basis of King’s report.
By 1854 sickness had begun to dog King and one evening in February 1856, while walking home after dining on board H. M. S. ‘Juno’, he had a stroke outside the gates of his home ‘Grantham’ at St. Leonard’s. He expired at half-past two in the morning of the Tuesday 27 Of February.
Geoff Barker, 2012
References
Anita McConnell, At the sign of the Golden Spectacles, Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2007Burlington, VT, USA, 2007
P.R. de Clerq, Nineteenth Century Scientific Instruments and Their Makers, CIP-Gegevens Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Den Haag, Amsterdam, 1985
‘King, Phillip Parker (1791 – 1856)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 2, Melbourne University Press, 1967, 61-64
The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 February 1856, pp. 4-5
New Year's card, Laszlo and Sibyl Moholy-Nagy to Dahl and Geoffrey Collings, 1937
This is the third post in our series based on the cataloguing of 2007/30/1, the archive of Dahl and Geoffrey Collings, specifically on the Christmas and New Year’s cards sent to them by family, friends and professional colleagues.
After moving to London in 1935 the Collings’ lived in a small flat at 158 Clifford’s Inn, Fetter Lane, just off Fleet Street. In February 1936 Dahl Collings met Professor Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, formerly of the Bauhaus School in Berlin which had been forced to close by the Nazis in July 1933, when applying for a job with his Pallas Studio to assist with the interior design and presentation of Simpson’s Department Store in Piccadilly, coincidentally some decades later the model for Grace Brothers in the British television sitcom ‘Are You Being Served?’. She always described Moholy-Nagy as the greatest influence on her career but initially neither she nor Geoffery Collings grasped the significance of this first meeting. In Geoffrey Caban’s book A Fine Line – A History of Australian Commercial Art, Dahl Collings reminisced that it was only through her friend, the Australian journalist Leicester Cotton, that she learnt of Moholy-Nagy’s reputation and that Cotton “couldn’t believe my luck”. Later she discovered that Moholy-Nagy had been impressed with her portfolio of work which showed “that I had used watercolour, fabrics and other materials in a way he hadn’t seen before.” In Caban’s book Dahl Collings also described her time with Moholy-Nagy as “absolutely stunning” because of the creative possibilities he encouraged her to explore and the team environment which he had he established. Through Dahl Collings, Alistair Morrison was employed on the project and he also found it to be a rewarding experience as “Moholy-Nagy introduced him to the potentialities and subtleties of design.” (Geoffrey Caban, A Fine Line – A History of Australian Commercial Art. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1983, pp71-73)
Dahl and Geoffrey Collings quickly became friends with Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and his wife Sibyl (1903 – 1971) as well as with Gyorgy Kepes (1906 – 2001) and his English girlfriend, Juliet Appleby (1919–1999), an artist and illustrator who married Kepes in 1937. These friendships continued well after the Moholy-Nagys and Kepes’ had left England to help establish the ‘New Bauhaus’ in Chicago, Illinois, in 1937 and the Collings’ had returned to live in Australia.
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy died from leukemia in Chicago on 24 November 1946 and we hold a card within the archive from Sibyl Moholy-Nagy thanking the Collings’ for their condolences. The card reads, “To Dahl and Geoffrey Collings with much love and admiration and in memory of Moholy-Nagy who was the teacher of us all.” (2007/30/1-22/1/6)
Today Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s name is commemorated through such institutions as the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest, Hungary, and the Moholy-Nagy Foundation, Inc. which is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
New Year's card, Laszlo and Sibyl Moholy-Nagy to Dahl and Geoffrey Collings, 1938
The two cards we have selected for this post feature images created by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy using the photogram process. Photo-sensitive materials including photographic paper were exposed to light without the aid of a camera which allowed Moholy-Nagy to create interesting shapes, lines, angles etc often by placing objects on the paper or by moving them during exposure. Moholy-Nagy first experimented with this process in Berlin in 1922 working with his first wife Lucia Schulz as well as with Man Ray who termed his works ‘Rayographs. The 1937 card includes a photogram entitled ‘Selbstbild’, a self portrait of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, which is dated 1925. A print from the collection of Sybil Moholy-Nagy is held by George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, while another print of this photogram is in the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. The photogram on the 1938 card is reproduced in a book we hold on Moholy-Nagy and is dated 1923 but at this stage we don’t have any other details about it. It is similar to other photograms made by Moholy-Nagy around the same time including this one at George Eastman House.
Post by Paul Wilson, Project Archivist
While our digitisation project is well underway, with 80% of collection objects currently listed online, there is much more work to be done. Your donation will assist the Powerhouse to add high quality photographs and full background information for the 50% of online objects with incomplete listings.