Category Archives: collections

Oceania: From Melbourne to Papeete

Revisiting  a 2019 entry to an exhibition catalogue

This piece was a difficult piece to write. The requirement was to survey 19th century photography across the Pacific in a few hundred words. Many hours were spent reducing the entry and making decisions on what to leave out — reluctantly!   If I ever find the time I may revisit this and make it a much longer piece with all the extras inserted back in. Wishful thinking maybe? Here’s the original piece.

Rod McNicol, The Roses 2024

On Our Collections

When we moved, we dispersed some of our collections and said to ourselves that we should not buy any more. Then we saw this wonderful new work by Rod McNicol.

A previous notice for this was posted on Facebook — but their algorithm removed it.  We have a theory.   Click here for the original piece on our website

Re-constructed Vision

Contemporary work with photography 25th July-23rd August, 1981

Over the recent years I have been searching through my archives for articles and essays that we have since published on our web-site. I had overlooked one exhibition. That was the 1981 Project Gallery exhibition Re-constructed Vision: Contemporary work with photography at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

It is now uploaded to our web site.

camera chic

East West Chic

In 2017  The Asia Art Society of Australia (TAASA) hosted a seminar of East West Chic.
I presented a talk on Camera Chic based on a collection we had put together – with fun pictures from  Asian studio portraiture. The collection highlighted the fusion of East and West evident in dress, accessories, and studio backdrops. Click here for more

Make sure you see the link to the powerpoint slides with loads of photographs to enjoy.

revisiting Photo Files 1999

The 1999 reader contains 33 essays selected by Blair French, who was then program manager for  the Australian Centre for Photography.

The texts had been previously published in the Centre of Photography’s journal — Photofile — that had been published since 1983.  I wrote the preface to this publication. There’s a table of contents below my online essay along with links to information about photofile and the ACP.     Click here for my essay.

cover image: Tracey Moffatt, Up In The Sky #3 1997 (detail)

Parting with Your Art ~ November 2021

An update on parting with my archives

Updated November 2021 

Have uploaded more to Parting with Your Artclick here.

This new page is an update on my most recent experiences on parting with my own archive as well as some thoughts that may be useful to others dealing with these downsizing matters

For the full list of pages so far: Click here

Curators and Photography

Have uploaded to our photo-web site a special section on the first photography curators — Australian that is.   We have listed four: Jennie Boddington, Ian North, Gael Newton (me!), and Alan Davies. The listings for Jennie and myself include 1983 interviews by the Australian Centre of Photography. These are very long!  (you have been warned)

Click here for the link.

If you know of any other useful online material on these people, please make contact.

Spot On

the art of film stills photography, 1906–2001

I was approached by Penny Grist of the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra to advise on the 2017 exhibition — Starstruck. I then had the great experience of working with the co-curators Penny from the Portrait Gallery and Jenny Coombes of National Film and Sound Archive. This was a fun collaborative research experience — with my essay published in their book for the exhibition. Click here for the essay now online.

Parting with Your Art ~ June 2021

Large Collections and Managing Expectations

Updated June 2021  Have uploaded more to Parting with Your Artclick here.

This page is about managing expectations, large collections, institutional collection policies, points for collectors approaching art museums and archives, recommended first steps — and more..

For the full list of pages so far: Click here

thousands of historic photographs online

Paris Musées launches online photography

Paris Musées, the public institution that manages all of the museums in Paris, has launched a new Collections portal with the public access to more than 100,000 high-resolution digital reproductions of classic artwork and photography.

Click here for the article on DP Review — or here for the portal


above image: 61 rue Saint-Louis-en-l’Ile, enseigne “Au petit Bacchus”. Paris (IVème arrondissement). Photographie d’Eugène Atget (1857–1927). Paris, musée Carnavalet.

20th-century Japanese photography

Hanran

Great looking exhibition — get me to Canada

An exhibition organized by the Yokohama Museum of Art in collaboration with the Canadian Photography Institute of the National Gallery of Canada.

Hanran: 20th-Century Japanese Photography
October 11, 2019 to Sunday, March 22, 2020
Click here for the link to the exhibition page — with images at the bottom of the page  that can be enlarged..

 

Curatorland

Writing in the Rain, FX Harsono - Still from colour video 2011  Collection National Gallery of Australia

Following my leaving the National Gallery in September 2014, I was asked by the editor of the Journal of the Asian Arts Society Australia to write about my last decade at the gallery — the decade that saw the establishment of a survey collection of Asia-Pacific photography spanning from South Asia to the west coast of the Americas.

The new collection was largely based around major collections acquired from several major private collections of Asia-Pacific photography including one of some 5000 colonial-era Indonesian photographs.

Here’s that story — click here

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For the list of my other essays (being updated) click here

 

Frank Hurley & Australian Native Plants

INFORMATION CALL-OUT: FRANK HURLEY

Searching for Frank Hurley along our northern beaches

Did you know that Frank Hurley was a very keen gardener and photographer of wild flowers?

Continue reading Frank Hurley & Australian Native Plants