Cultural Collections: Past Exhibitions

Past Exhibitions

2009

Reframing Darwin: Evolution and Art in Australia

Ian Potter Museum of Art, 12 August to 1 November

Reframing Darwin: Evolution and Art in Australia was a major exhibition celebrating the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his landmark text Origin of Species. Bringing together artworks from public and private collections around Australia, the exhibition highlighted Charles Darwin's visit to Australia and explored the diverse ways in which Darwinian idea of evolution, natural selection and scientific thinking have influenced various artistic practices.

Selected artefacts from the David and Marion Adams Collection

Ian Potter Museum of Art, 15 April to 11 October 2009

Dr Marion Adams (1932–1995) was dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1988 to 1993. Throughout her life she acquired an impressive collection of artefacts from the ancient Near and Far East, Egypt, Greece and Rome, Africa and the Americas. Marion Adams’s husband, David Adams, has continued to add to this collection in her memory, and has generously donated selected items from the collection to the University of Melbourne. This fascinating exhibition featured Classical works from the Adams Collection including a marble torso of the Roman god Sylvanus, an Italo-Corinthian buff ware chalice from the 8th–9th century BCE, and a 3rd-century marble sarcophagus bas-relief fragment.

See: Andrew Jamieson, with a foreword by Chris McAuliffe, Selected artefacts from the David and Marion Adams Collection (exhibition brochure), Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, 2009.

Highlights from the University of Melbourne Art Collection, part 1

Ian Potter Museum of Art, 23 April to 30 August 2009

Since the university’s inception in 1853, thousands of rare and invaluable pieces have been collected. Shaped over more than 150 years by the many individuals who have donated, acquired and commissioned artworks, the collection comprises fascinating items of diverse cultural significance. This exhibition included key paintings, works on paper, sculpture and decorative arts from the University of Melbourne Art Collection.

Ancestral power and the aesthetic: Arnhem Land paintings and objects from the Donald Thomson Collection

Ian Potter Museum of Art, 2 June to 23 August 2009

This exhibition presented bark paintings and other painted objects collected in eastern Arnhem Land by anthropologist, the late Professor Donald Thomson (1901–1970). The exhibition features around a third of an extraordinary collection of some seventy bark paintings in the Donald Thomson Collection. This powerful visual suite embodies the essence of many of the major ancestors who created the landscape and gave life and meaning to the people of Arnhem Land, such as the Wagilag Sisters and the Djankawu Sisters.

Everybody loves a road trip!

Leigh Scott Gallery, 1st floor, Baillieu Library, 27 May to 7 August 2009

This exhibition showcased the collection of Shell Company of Australia, which the company donated to the University of Melbourne Archives (UMA) in 2008, in addition to other UMA collections and items on loan from the RACV Heritage Collection. From early in the 20th century the Shell Company of Australia placed a great deal of emphasis on community relations and how the general public perceived its products and the company itself. In Australia there has been a long tradition of exploration of our environment and journeys over vast distances. After World War II this tradition was further reinforced by the growing popularity of motor vehicle ownership and the family road trip. The displays included project albums (to house collections of promotional cards) and other merchandise, posters, advertisements, photographs, documents, calendars, touring maps (including a Braille map of Australia) and tips for drivers. The exhibition was curated by Melinda Barrie, Senior Archivist, Rio Tinto and Business, University of Melbourne Archives.

An accompanying publication is available: Everybody loves a road trip! (exhibition brochure), University of Melbourne Library, 2009.

Download the brochure: part 1 (pdf 5.52Mb); part 2 (pdf 4.85Mb); part 3 (pdf 2.36 Mb).

To receive a printed copy of the brochure, please email the curator, Melinda Barrie.

See also: Silvia Dropulich, 'Everybody loves a road trip', The Voice, vol. 5, no. 4, 13 July-9 August 2009, p. 7.

A Storehouse of Wisdom: Celebrating 50 years of the Baillieu Library

Baillieu Library, 20 March to 17 May 2009

The exhibition was a celebration of the Baillieu Library's history, its collections and treasures as well as its impact on and inspiration for its community of students and staff, past and present. The exhibition brought together photographs (past and present), realia, newspaper articles, prints, paintings, books and film drawn from various University of Melbourne collections such as Archives, East Asian, Rare Books, Special Collections and works from private collections.

Highlights of the exhibition were the screening of the original footage from the official opening of the Baillieu Library in March 1959 and the recreation of the foyer display cabinet as it was originally intended.

The exhibition marked the beginning of a series of events throughout 2009 designed to celebrate the Baillieu Library’s 50th anniversary.

Curators: Jacquie Barnett, Morfia Grondas, Andrea Hurt, Stephanie Jaehrling, Pam Pryde, Kerrianne Stone.

Intelligentsia: Louis Kahan's Portraits of Writers

Ian Potter Museum of Art, 22 January to 19 April 2009

This exhibition brings together Louis Kahan’s remarkable portraits of writers for the provocative literary and cultural journal Meanjin from 1955 to 1974. With Kahan’s inspired contributions, Meanjin became, in Geoffrey Blainey’s words ‘an illuminating mirror of Australian cultural life’. Louis Kahan AO (1905–2002) had a magical ability to depict the facial idiosyncrasies of his subjects and the physiognomic traits of the thinking, working mind. Drawn from the University of Melbourne’s collections, the exhibition includes over fifty drawings of writers, poets and intellectuals including Patrick White, Christina Stead, Miles Franklin and Geoffrey Blainey.

2008

Greek Vases

Ian Potter Museum of Art, 20 September 2008 to 5 April 2009

Some of the most important pottery producing centres of the Greek world are represented in this exhibition drawn from the University of Melbourne Classics and Archaeology Collection: Athens, Corinth, east Greece and south Italy. This important collection covers the period from the thirteenth to the fourth centuries BCE and is one of the most highly regarded collections of classical antiquities in Australia.

Keeping scores: 100 years of the Music Library

Leigh Scott Gallery, 1st floor, Baillieu Library, 1 December 2008 to 1 March 2009

The history of what is now the Louise Hanson-Dyer Music Library at the University of Melbourne is also the history of orchestral music performance in early 20th-century Victoria. The music library has existed almost as long as the Music Faculty, with orchestral music being purchased since at least 1903. A crucial development came in 1908 with the generous donation of 1,000 pounds to the Professor from Mr A.E.J. Lee "to use as he saw fit for orchestral work”. Conductors G.W.L. Marshall-Hall, Sir Bernard Heinze and John Hopkins have all had a significant influence on the music acquired by the library and heard by the concert-going public.

The library collections have since grown and diversified to include music manuscripts, chamber music scores, collected editions and Monumenta, books, periodicals, instruments, furniture, sound recordings, photographs, original art works and concert programs.

Among items to be displayed will be original works ranging from a 13th-century illuminated manuscript to the latest arrangement of the ABC news theme by Richard Mills, musical instruments purchased by Nellie Melba for use by Conservatorium students, a historic ledger detailing the activities of orchestras including the Newcastle Symphony Orchestra and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and a 1956 Olympic Games concert program which included works by Australian composers Dorian le Gallienne and Margaret Sutherland.

Unusual, unique and interesting objects will showcase the diversity of holdings and demonstrate the important place of the Music Library in providing social and cultural opportunities to Melburnians for more than a century.

The exhibition is curated by Evelyn Portek and Kerrianne Stone with the assistance of Richard Excell.

A fully-illustrated catalogue of the exhibition, with an essay by Dr Peter Tregear on the history of the Music Library, is also available:

Peter Tregear, Evelyn Portek and Kerrianne Stone, Keeping scores: 100 years of the Music Library (exhibition catalogue), Parkville, Vic.: University of Melbourne LIbrary, 2008.

Highlights from the Sir Russell and Lady Grimwade Bequest

Ian Potter Museum of Art, 4 September 2008 to 18 January 2009

The Sir Russell and Lady Grimwade Bequest is an extensive collection of cultural material comprising artworks, photographs, decorative arts, furniture, rare books, historical documents and other memorabilia that provides a perspective on the visual history of Australia from the time of European discovery to the 1950s. The dominant themes of the collection reflect Sir Russell Grimwade’s desire to document the exploration, settlement and development of Australia as a nation and the growth of Melbourne as a city.

Sowing a seed: Art inspired by the Herbarium

Leigh Scott Gallery, 1st floor, Baillieu Library, 15 September to 23 November 2008

Download the poster

Artists in many media - painters, botanical illustrators, textile designers, printmakers, scrapbook compilers, even handbag makers - have found inspiration in the scientific plant specimens found in the collection of the University of Melbourne Herbarium. Although originally collected for teaching and research purposes, and still regularly used by students and staff, these taxonomic treasures have also been the source of ideas for many creative artists.

Sowing a seed included recent photographic work by Andrew Seward, Kyatt Dixon and Trisha Downing; fabric designs by Nicola Cerini; the work of gumleaf painters from today and the 1880s; earlier 19th-century scrapbooks comprising artistically arranged collections of flowers, algae and ferns; botanical illustrations by Thelma Daniell, Dorothy Derwent Dixon and Harry Swart; and May Gibbs' charming illustrations for her early 20th-century children's books. Together with these were displayed dried or pressed specimens of the fungi, flowers, algae, ferns and other plants that have inspired their work and which are beautiful objects in their own right. Also featured were some of the remarkable magnified plant models made in the early 20th century for teaching plant biology. These intricately crafted and hand-painted models were mostly made in Germany and were used in universities and museums across the globe until microscopy became more easily accessible to the average student.

Sowing a seed was curated by Nicole Middleton, Collections Manager of the University of Melbourne Herbarium. It drew on the collections of the Herbarium, Special Collections of the Baillieu Library, the Grainger Museum and a number of artists and private collectors. A printed catalogue is available.

Nicole Middleton and Sophine Chai, Sowing a seed: Art inspired by the Herbarium (exhibition catalogue), Parkville, Vic.: Cultural Collections, University of Melbourne, 2008.

Write of fancy: The Golden Cockerel Press

Ground floor, Baillieu Library, 17 August to 26 September 2008

The exhibition Write of fancy, curated by Kerrianne Stone, explored the hearts and minds of the inventors, writers and artists of this British press which operated between 1920 and 1960. It showcased examples from the Baillieu Library’s exceptional collection of Golden Cockerel books, comprising the gifts of various individual donors and the Friends of the Baillieu Library. Examples included Eric Gill and Robert Gibbings’ collaboration on The four Gospels (1931), John Buckland Wright’s illustration of Endymion (1947), and maritime history books.

Golden Cockerel books achieved a visual harmony between content, typography and illustration. The exhibition was a chance to discover how this private press from its inception was a flight of fancy, and how through its words and images it became a ‘write of fancy’.

Kerrianne Stone, Write of fancy: The Golden Cockerel Press (exhibition catalogue), Parkville, Vic.: University of Melbourne, 2008.

Sport and performance in twentieth-century posters and prints

Ian Potter Museum of Art, 1 August to 19 October 2008

Drawn from the University of Melbourne Art Collection, this small-scale focus exhibition included works of art that portray theatrical or artistic representations of human movement and sport. Comprising posters and the graphic arts, a special feature of the exhibition was a set of seven works by French artist Marie Laurencin, who was an important figure of the Parisian avant-garde during the early years of the twentieth century.

Microsurgical Innovation: Ophthalmic Instrumentation

Medical History Museum, 2nd floor, Brownless Biomedical Library, 28 July 2008 to April 2009

This exhibition is a celebration of the life and work of the late Professor Emeritus Gerard William Crock, AO MB BS FRCS FRACS FRACP FRACO (1929-2007), a graduate of the Melbourne Medical School who became the head of the first ophthalmic academic department in Australia, and the Foundation Professor of Ophthalmology in May 1963. He was a brilliant and innovative surgeon and clinician, whose research in microsurgical instrumentation revolutionised ocular surgery. He introduced techniques and procedures that are now seen as the standard of care and he was a world leader and specialist in retina, cornea and glaucoma and the first to perform cataract microsurgery.

The exhibition is based on the collection of over 1,000 photographs, documents, design drawings and instruments that Professor Crock donated to the Medical History Museum. The John Reid Charitable Trusts provided a generous grant for the collection to be sorted, identified, catalogued and preserved, and for this exhibition to be displayed.

Australian Archaeologists at Pella

Ian Potter Museum of Art, 10 April to 14 September 2008

This exhibition looked at the ancient city of Pella in the North Jordan Valley and told the story of technology, trade and daily life over many centuries. It also described the significant discoveries Australian archaeologists have made in Jordan for over fifty years. Excavations have revealed Pella as one of the most important ancient cities in Jordan, with a pattern of continuous human settlement stretching back to Neolithic times (c. 6500 BCE). Objects in the exhibition were drawn from the National Gallery of Australia’s collection, currently on long-term loan to the University of Sydney’s Nicholson Museum, augmented by artefacts held in the University of Melbourne's Classics and Archaeology Collection.

Murderous Melbourne: A Celebration of Australian Crime Fiction and Place

Leigh Scott Gallery, first floor, Baillieu Library, 10 June to 7 September 2008

A Baillieu Library Special Collections exhibition

Australia has nurtured many fine crime fiction writers over the years, starting with Mary Fortune and Fergus Hume in the late 1800s. However, the post-World War 2 years represent crime fiction’s ‘golden age’ in this country. The ranks of Australian crime fiction writers from this period include Carter Brown, S.H. Courtier, Geoff de Fraga, Charlotte Jay (inaugural winner of the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1954), Helen Mace, A.E. Martin, Margot Neville, Eric North, James Preston, Elizabeth Salter, Arthur Upfield and June Wright — to name but a few. More recently, Marshall Browne, Peter Corris, Kerry Greenwood, Barry Maitland, Shane Maloney and Peter Temple (winner of the UK Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award in 2007) have been widely acclaimed for their crime fiction writing.

The exhibition Murderous Melbourne featured items from the University of Melbourne’s extensive collection of Australian crime fiction. It also showcased work by third-year students of architecture and Master’s students of landscape architecture from the University of Melbourne, who have used Australian crime fiction as a tool for stretching the boundaries of creativity and design. The architecture students have designed a Centre for Australian Crime Fiction, to be located on the car park adjacent to the north court of the Union building. A major influence on their designs was June Wright’s 1961 crime novel Faculty of Murder, set in the University of Melbourne. The landscape architecture students have designed stage props for S.H. Courtier’s crime novels See Who’s Dying (1967) and Murder’s Burning (1967), both set in the Australian outback.

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Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack

Ian Potter Museum of Art, 15 May to 31 August 2008

Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack is a key figure within Victoria’s cultural history. A master of the legendary German Bauhaus design school, Hirschfeld Mack emigrated to Australia in 1941 and taught at Geelong Grammar School. He experimented with colour theory, materials and techniques to create paintings, prints and drawings that harnessed the dynamic and rhythmic qualities of colours and shapes. This exhibition investigates the experimental aspects of Mack’s practice through a display of over sixty artworks and visual tools such as colour charts.

One World One Dream: Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Souvenirs and Chinese Books

Third floor, Baillieu Library (outside Cultural Collections Reading Room), until end of August 2008

To celebrate the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, the East Asian Collection has created a display of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games souvenirs and books. The exhibit comprises a variety of interesting items such as children's comic books, rhymes, coins, countdown badges, cups, fans, Fuwa (mascots), postcards, posters, stamps and T-shirts. Chinese books on display cover a variety of subjects including stadium design and architecture, manners, pollution, marketing, history and Beijing Olympic Games research materials.

Cambridge Collected: The Pierre Gorman Story

Leigh Scott Gallery, Baillieu Library, 20 March to 30 May 2008

A Baillieu Library Special Collections Exhibition

Cambridge in Prints and Books

Comprising close to 3000 items dating from 1568 to the present, the collection of books and prints at the University of Melbourne relating to Cambridge – the University and the town – may well be the most extensive outside Cambridge itself. The University of Melbourne since its establishment in 1853 has had strong links with Cambridge University and collected books on all aspects of Cambridge. The acquisition of Pierre Gorman’s collection in 1994 on the initiative of the then Collections Management Librarian, Juliet Flesch, was therefore a valuable addition to the University’s material and the additions since that time, mostly donated by Pierre Gorman, has made the University of Melbourne collection of Cambridge books and prints truly world class. Amongst the particular strengths of the Cambridge Collection are the guide books and the histories of the university and colleges, many of them illustrated by the foremost artists of their day. There are important black and white or colour illustrations in various sizes by notable artists including Loggan, the Harradens, the Storers, Mason, Dyer, among many others. The University of Melbourne Library is the only Australian library to possess the rare Loggan 1st edition (1690) and the even rarer 2nd edition (1715). A highlight of the collection is a splendidly illuminated 1662 heraldic manuscript depicting the arms of the Earls of Cambridge, the Chancellors of Cambridge University and the colleges of Cambridge University.

Dr Pierre Patrick Gorman (1924-2006)

Pierre Gorman was born in Melbourne as the only child of Sir Eugene and Marthe Gorman. After graduating from Melbourne Grammar and then from the University of Melbourne with a BAgSci in 1949 and a BEd in 1951, Pierre went on to study at Cambridge University, from where in 1960 he became the first deaf person to take out a PhD. Pierre was totally deaf from birth but, through the dedication of his parents and teachers as well as his own willpower and intelligence, he learnt to master the spoken language and became an expert lip reader. Pierre had a long and distinguished career in England and Australia as educator of the deaf and a tireless advocate against discrimination towards people with disabilities. After retirement from the Faculty of Education at Monash in 1983 he offered his large collections of books and prints relating to Cambridge to the University of Melbourne where they were acquired in 1994 and 1995 respectively. Perhaps because he did not have a sense of hearing, Pierre came to be particularly interested in the visual arts. He collected in great depth all aspects of the history of the University and town of Cambridge, but especially prints and books relating to his beloved Corpus Christi College. The books and prints in the Gorman Cambridge Collection at the University of Melbourne were collected over a lifetime and to the end of his life Pierre continued to collect Cambridge books and donate them to the University. He documented the Gorman Cambridge collection in an exhaustive bibliography which also includes books on Cambridge found in other parts of the University of Melbourne collections. For his services to the University of Melbourne Pierre was awarded an LLD honoris causa in 2000.

Madhubani Paintings

Ian Potter Museum of Art, 24 January to 11 May 2008

Curator: Bala Starr

The University of Melbourne holds a collection of thirty vibrant and unusual Madhubani paintings on paper from North India. Originally acquired in 1982 as an aid in teaching Hindu mythology by the then-Department of Indian Studies, the collection reflects the strong connections between the University’s cultural collections and its teaching programs.

The Engraver's Hand in the Medical Text

Medical History Museum, 11 to 28 March 2008

See: Janine Sim-Jones, 'Centuries-old medical books on display', The Voice, vol. 2, no. 4, 17 March-14 April 2008, p. 8.

Joe Burke's Legacy: The History of Art History in Melbourne

Leigh Scott Gallery, Baillieu Library, 15 January to 7 March 2008

Coinciding with the 32nd Congress of the International Committee on Art History, Crossing cultures: Conflict, migration, convergence, held at the University in January, an exhibition on art history teaching and research at the University of Melbourne was staged in the Baillieu Library. Curated by PhD student Ben Thomas, the exhibition drew upon the papers of such seminal figures as Joseph Burke (the first Herald Professor of Fine Arts), Ursula Hoff, Margaret Manion, Franz Philipp, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack and Leonhard Adam, all held at the University of Melbourne Archives, as well as works from the University Art Collection, including the Leonhard Adam Collection of international Indigenous Culture.

Ben Thomas presented a seminar for the History of the University Unit at 1:00 on Tuesday 4 March in the Leigh Scott Room, First Floor, Baillieu Library.

Exhibition catalogue

Sir Andrew Grimwade's speech opening the exhibition

Silvia Dropulich, 'Art as History', The Voice, vol. 2, no. 2, 8 February-3 March 2008, p. 8.

Major Kenneth Russell, pioneer dental surgeon, WWI 1914–1918

A display from the collection of the Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum, School of Dental Science.

This small but intriguing display looked at the work of Major Kenneth Russell D.D.Sc (1885–1945) during world war 1. After serving with the AIF as a dental officer in Egypt and France, Russell was transferred in 1917 to the special face and jaw hospital in Sidcup, Kent, England. He cared for patients with jaw and facial injuries and trained dental officers in the special methods of treatment used at that time.

He also made collections of teaching models and appliances for the Universities of Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. The display was part of the original Melbourne collection that was housed in the museum of the Australian College of Dentistry. Now part of the Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum, the collection is possibly the only remaining example of treatment techniques from this period.

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