In last Thursday’s Photo of the Day post, curator Margaret Simpson wrote about the widespread practice of keeping chickens for domestic use in late nineteenth century Australia:
By the end of the nineteenth century most people in Australia kept a few fowls for home use. Chickens needed a chicken coop or house in which to lay and sit on their eggs, where they were shut up at night, safe from predators, such as foxes. The chickens fed on kitchen scraps and spare grains, and any seeds, insects or the morsel they could find in the yard.
This photograph, from an unattributed studio, shows a woman in what appears to be a suburban backyard feeding her fowls from a kitchen saucepan. The wire coop that kept the chickens safe from nighttime predators is clearly visible. The birds, however, were a little too fast for the camera’s shutter as can be seen from the blur created by their fluttering wings.
Photography by unattributed studio. Tyrrell Collection
No known copyright restrictions
This photograph was taken by the Museum’s photographer Marinco Kojdanovski back in 2006. It shows an acrobat from the The Flying Fruit Fly Circus. The group was performing at the Museum in January 2006 at the opening of The Great Wall of China: dynasties, dragons and warriors exhibition and the associated holiday program. “Teetering on the Wall” was a show developed especially for the exhibition, with many of its acts drawing on the ancient Chinese circus tradition.
Photography by Marinco Kojdanovski
© All rights reserved
In this fashion photograph Italian model Carla Baldaracchi wears a bold Post-WWII modernist summer frock by Ninette of Melbourne. (Perhaps the man on the left was the photographer’s scout – the person who managed to secure the location for the shot?) The photograph presents an ambitious scenario, capturing both the fashion, and the orchestra pit and the elaborate operatic stage set of the Baths of Caracalla, ancient Roman ruins of the lavish thermal baths built for Emperor Caracalla between AD 212 and 217 which were used for outdoor operatic performances during Spring and Summer. Here Melbourne-based Australian photographer Bruno Benini (born 1925, migrated to Australia from the medieval city of Massa Marittima in Tuscany, Italy in 1935, died Melbourne 2001) places Australian fashion centre stage! It’s a remarkable shot as it not only evokes the globetrotting or ‘vacation’ style that became popular in fashion photography during the 1950s, but also captures the photographer’s Italian heritage and his interest in history and opera. Furthermore, it hints at the cinematic influence of fashionable films like Funny Face (1957) and Roman Holiday (1953).
Interestingly, Benini’s maternal grandfather was an Etruscan archaeologist. Perhaps he left a binding youthful impression on Benini as a boy, as many of the negatives in the Benini photography archive show Australian fashion shot against ancient settings. This particular shot was taken during Benini’s ‘round the world’ trip in 1958 when he travelled to New York and London, visiting family in Italy and shooting photographs of Australian fashion in and around Rome on both Italian and Australian models.
The Benini archive was acquired by the Powerhouse Museum with funding assistance from the Australian Government through the National Cultural Heritage Account in 2009. A Benini exhibition is currently being developed for the 2010 Sydney Design Festival. Keep an eye on the Curatorial blog as curators reveal more treasures from the Benini archive.
Photography by Bruno Benini
© Estate of Bruno Benini
Post by Anne-Marie Van de Ven, Curator
New South Wales has one of the best water-colour collections in the world…[I]t represents most of the water-colour painters of the more modern British School…The two eastern colonies have committees of selection in London, and it is through these bodies the colonies have secured some of the most famous pictures which adorn their galleries…In the Sydney gallery…there are works from the French, the Belgian, the German, the Italian, the Spanish, the Austrian, the Bavarian and the Swedish schools…A bullock team on the Darling Downs is as worthy a thing to paint as an English wheatfield; Govett’s Leap lends itself to stately power as much as the Highlands of Scotland; and there are tints in the skies of the South, and colours on the shores of Australian seas, as full of beauty as any that ever rose before the eye of a master.
Gilbert Parker, Round the Compass in Australia, Hutchinson, London, 1892, pp.429-31, 437
Early in the twentieth Henry King was commissioned by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, (then known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales) to photograph its major works. The Powerhouse Museum Tyrrell Collection includes 1,334 photographs by Henry King.
Photography by Henry King. Tyrrell Collection
No known copyright restrictions
This certificate photograph shows a display of Sunrise Eggs at the Annual Show in Newcastle. It’s dated February 1940. The stall is decorated with advertisements produced by the New South Wales Egg Marketing Board:
From scientifically – fed hens. Tested for freshness. Graded for size and weight…and branded. You get new laid eggs perfect for eating and cooking in the new orange and blue carton.
By the end of the nineteenth century most people in Australia kept a few fowls for home use. Chickens needed a chicken coop or house in which to lay and sit on their eggs, where they were shut up at night, safe from predators, such as foxes. The chickens fed on kitchen scraps and spare grains, and any seeds, insects or the morsel they could find in the yard.
At this time there was still no attempt at commercial poultry farming. Even in the first decades of the twentieth century the few commercial egg producers were a novelty and their production was considered a hazardous livelihood. Vet Science was yet to become involved in the industry, facilities were primitive and methods of husbandry trial-and-error. Nevertheless, as the population of cities increased egg production grew with farms being located close to the suburbs to ensure fresh first-grade “Suburban new-laid eggs”. Eggs which arrived from country areas were stale or of unreliable quality.
During the economic depression of the 1930s egg production increased as large numbers of the unemployed took up poultry farming. Controlled egg production increased during the Second World War so too did the importance and relevance of the Egg Marketing Board. Scientific breeding, improved poultry nutrition and the introduction of the inhumane cage system further increased production by the 1960s.
Newcastle Annual Show certificate photograph, 1940
No known copyright restrictions
Post by Margaret Simpson, Curator
Put a plug in it!
Have you ever bought one of those ‘one size fits all’ plugs? only to go home and find that you have been sold a lie, the plug doesn’t quite do the job.
Well believe it or not, the objects in the photo above are actually plugs, and guaranteed to fit the job they were designed for! Well they are not quite plugs, rather they are patterns for plugs that fit the bottom of the boiler of a 38 locomotive. As you may know, we have a 38 locomotive (3830) and whilst restoring it at the Eveleigh workshop the team salvaged these plug patterns, so that new plugs for the boiler could be cast
Why are they in the workshop?
The Museum was recently contacted by the owner of the 3801 locomotive, which is being restored. Their boiler is currently being remade in Germany, and a ‘one size fits all’ plug will just not do!. They have asked us for these plug patterns to be sent to them so that they can make perfectly fitting plugs for the boiler.
Photography and post by Erika Dicker, Assistant Curator
© All rights reserved
On 1 January Sydney celebrated Australia becoming a Federation by hosting a grand procession through its streets. Erected on the corner of Park and College Street the Federation ‘German Arch’ was the point where the procession turned to make their way to Centennial Park. Funded by the German citizens of Sydney it was designed by C. Mullen and was 16.2 metres high and 13.2 metres wide. At its apex was a representation of an eagle over 2.4 metres high and 4.2 metres wide and weighing over 250 kilograms.
No known copyright restrictions
Post by Geoff Barker, Assistant Curator
Each year around the world, International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8 to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women.
This photograph shows women from the Save Our Sons group protesting against conscription during the Vietnam war. SOS was established in Sydney in 1965 and mostly comprised women whose sons were old enough to be subject to national service.
Photography in all its forms influenced public opinion about the war and photographs like this one captured that process of change as these women followed the example of other groups and took their message to the streets.
Photographer David Mist wrote of this tumultuous time in his 1969 publication, ‘Sydney, a book of photographs’:
Protest is becoming a part of life in Sydney. Trade unions, peace groups, religious organisations and students march to demonstrate their causes.
Photography by David Mist
© All rights reserved
In the 1890s, Sydney photographer Charles Kerry introduced his ‘Squatters’ Service’, travelling by train and horseback to homesteads all over New South Wales. Negatives were developed on the spot, contact prints shown to the client and orders taken that were later filled from Sydney. Many of the images were also made available to the public for purchase from the Kerry studio.
This man clearly considered the station’s collie dogs important enough to be included in his portrait photograph. Collies were working dogs; intelligent, energetic and generally used for herding sheep. They were also favoured by Queen Victoria, who had a pet collie called Sharp. The royal patronage that made the dogs fashionable as companion animals may also have raised the status of working collies such as these.
In contrast to many of the distinctively Australian rural images produced by the Kerry studio, this photograph, due to the man’s clothing, the wet ground and the overcast weather, has a curiously European atmosphere.
Photography by Kerry & Co. Tyrrell Collection
No known copyright restrictions.
This wonderful and creative image was taken by one of the members in our group on Flickr, Me and the Powerhouse Museum . This group on Flickr is a place for our visitors to share the images they take whilst visiting the Museum. This particular shot was taken by Erik K Veland whilst he was visiting the Museum in 2007. We recently posted another great image on Photo of the Day that he had shared to the group titled ‘light experiment’.
If you are visiting the Museum we would love you to share your photos of your experience in our group on Flickr.
Photography by Erik K Veland
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic
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