Ford to close in Australia: an Australian icon, the 1965 Ford Falcon XP

Published on May 24, 2013 by Margaret Simpson in Object of the week, Planes, Trains, Automobiles and Engines, Technology and transport. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .
Sectioned XP Ford Falcon, Powerhouse Museum Collection. Gift of the Ford Motor Company of Australia, 1966. B1644

Sectioned XP Ford Falcon, Powerhouse Museum Collection. Gift of the Ford Motor Company of Australia, 1966. B1644

On 23 May, 2013, Australians were stunned to learn that Ford was to finish production of cars in Australia in 2016. The first Ford cars were sold in Australia in 1904 and a sales office opened in Melbourne in 1909, established by Ford of Canada. In the same year a local manufacturing plant was established in Victoria, at Geelong, 70 km SW of Melbourne. The Broadmeadows assembly plant, 16 km N of Melbourne, was opened in 1958 and an engine machine shop built in the expanded plant two years later. This enabled production to almost double from 50,000 to 90,000 units in 1961.

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Archaeology Week – Excavating an ancient Egyptian cemetery: pondering the ethics of working with human remains

Published on May 23, 2013 by Melanie Pitkin in Archaeology, News and Object of the week. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .
Excavating the Wadi Mouth site at the South Tombs Cemetery © Melanie Pitkin.

Excavating the Wadi Mouth site at the South Tombs Cemetery © Melanie Pitkin.

I’ve recently returned from the 2013 Spring Season excavations at the South Tombs Cemetery in Tell el-Amarna, Middle Egypt. Tell el-Amarna, or more simply Amarna, is the ancient Egyptian city built by the ‘heretic’ King Akhenaten, husband of Queen Nefertiti, in c. 1350 BC. Occupied for less than 20 years, Amarna is where Akhenaten broke with 2000 years of tradition to “pursue his vision of a society dedicated to the cult of only one god, the power of the sun – the Aten” (Amarna Project). Continue reading ‘Archaeology Week – Excavating an ancient Egyptian cemetery: pondering the ethics of working with human remains’

An evocative object: sail-maker’s seam rubber

Published on May 22, 2013 by Debbie Rudder in Industry, Museology and objects. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .
Powerhouse Museum Collection, object H8736. Gift of the Australian Museum, 1969.

Powerhouse Museum Collection, object H8736. Gift of the Australian Museum, 1969.

When I picked up this small bone tool in our basement store, I experienced a visceral reaction, the shock of sudden realisation: it linked me to a great-grandfather I never met. The object evoked thoughts and emotions as I remembered listening to countless stories told by my grandfather, Hal Hooker. He was a warm, fun-loving raconteur, a first-class cricketer and a professional radio and TV sports commentator.

I vividly recalled him telling me that his father George was tall, had huge hands, and was boxing champion of the British merchant navy. Once George’s sailing days were over, he settled in Sydney and set up a canvas-goods business. He must have learned sail-making skills while at sea – and he would have used an object like the one I was holding.

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Archaeology Week- ‘Pompeii of the north’ in Powerhouse’s Guildhall Collection

Published on May 20, 2013 by Paul Donnelly in Archaeology, ceramics and Object of the week. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .
A3161 Earthenware oil lamp, 1st-2nd century AD

A3161 Earthenware oil lamp, 1st-2nd century AD
Collection: Powerhouse Museum

There is currently great excitement in London as evidence of Roman lives – wonderfully preserved in the London mud – are being extracted by archaeologists. Among the material are hundreds of Roman shoes, jewellery, waxed wooden writing tablets with their writing styli, jewellery, cosmetic tools, part of the Temple of Mithras and of course, pottery galore.
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Lost paintings from the pub wall

Published on May 15, 2013 by Charles Pickett in Architecture and Urban Design, Art, Collections, Design and Designers, Graphic design, Object of the week and Sydney. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .
pub painting

Pub painting, photo by Jim Brown 1968-1972.

Jim Brown was a former US serviceman who lived in Sydney from 1968 to 1972. Like a lot of people back then he was struck by the oil-on-glass pub advertising paintings which adorned most of Sydney’s pubs. During the first half of the twentieth century a lot of advertising graphics and signs were the work of artists like those at the Rousel Studio. A painterly touch was common.
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Julian Tenison Woods, spiritual advisor to Mary McKillop

Published on May 13, 2013 by Anni Turnbull in Art, Object of the week, Registrar's corner and Religion. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .
Julian Tenison Woods (1832-1889)

Collector, naturalist and Catholic priest Julian Tenison Woods (1832-1889)

Behind the scenes at the Powerhouse, a team of people has been chipping away at a coalface. They are mining the collection. As part of a TAM (Total Asset Management) project, they are digitising early acquisition records to make sure the collection database contains a record of every item collected since the beginning of the Museum in 1882. They are also improving the documentation of some of our important early collections. Among other discoveries, the TAM project has uncovered a small treasure-trove for historians and followers of Mary MacKillop and her mentor, and for scholars of Asian culture.
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Sirius on the Rocks

Published on May 8, 2013 by Charles Pickett in Architecture, Architecture and Urban Design, Design and Designers, New Acquisitions, Object of the week, Sydney and Urban development. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .
Sirius

Sirius apartments, watercolour and ink on board. PHM collection 2013/36/1 Gift of the family of Jack and Jean Nagle.

We have just acquired this watercolour elevation of the Sirius public housing apartments in the Rocks.  Most architects’ elevations use a street level viewpoint – this bird’s eye view is different and striking.

Sirius was built to rehouse public tenants displaced during the controversial redevelopment of the Rocks during the 1960s and 1970s. Eventually building work in the Rocks was halted by union Green Bans and resident opposition. In 1975 the Sydney Cove Redevelopment Authority agreed to suspend most of its development plans and rehouse displaced public housing tenants in new public housing.
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Powerhouse Museum Movable Heritage Fellow for 2013 -Leanne Wicks from Kandos

Published on May 6, 2013 by Anni Turnbull in Industry, Object of the week and Regional Services. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , .
Miners hard hat, 1947, Kandos

Miners hard hat, 1947, Kandos

Coming up with an idea for a research project was not difficult for me living on the edge of the Western coalfield of NSW.  Evidence of Kandos’ past reliance on the winning of coal doesn’t take much digging. 

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Wow – a giant exploded treasure chest!

Published on April 29, 2013 by Lynne McNairn in Object of the week and steam. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

B2255 End section of boiler, 'Day Street Boiler', iron, England, 1815 - 1840

The other day I was walking through the museum and came across a family visiting the Steam Revolution exhibition. Their young son was racing around in typical fashion when he came to a dead stop in front of the above object and exclaimed ‘Wow – a giant exploded treasure chest!!’

The object in question is the Day Street Boiler and it does have a pretty interesting story. This large end section was unearthed in 1976 during construction of the Western Distributor freeway. It appears to have been used as landfill in the early days of Sydney when land reclamations took place for construction of the dockland area at Darling Harbour, between 1838 and 1848. There were only 6 steam engines operating in Sydney in 1831, which grew to 26 by the end of the 1840s, so the Day Street Boiler is quite a rare piece of metal.
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Discovery of 400 World War One Photographic Portraits

Published on April 24, 2013 by Geoff Barker in Anazc Day and Object of the week. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , .
studio portrait of four WW1 soldiers

85/1286-1005 Photographic negative, studio portrait of four soldiers, A Wedmore [Driver], G W Ralston, W C Potts, World War One Gunners, 21 Howitzer Brigade, and one unidentified man, glass / silver / gelatin, owned by Tyrrell’s bookstore, Sydney, 1916-1918

Sometimes museum work can take a long time to bear fruit and this collection of World War One portraits is a case-in-point. For most of the twentieth century they were buried within the huge collection acquired by James Tyrrell, the Sydney bookstore owner. Presumably he had acquired them in the 1920s and 1930s, either as part of one of the commercial studio collection’s built up by Charles Kerry and Henry King, or separately at one of the many auction’s he must have attended.
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