Search results for 'Ian Rumsey'

Vol 45 no 3, Aug 2023
President’s Update
By Colin Thomas   |   August 2023   |   Vol 45 no 3

As announced in the May issue, the 2024 National Tour will be held in and around Adelaide, South Australia. The organising committee has already secured visits to several private collections belonging to South Australian members and these will be combined with enhanced viewing of some sig...

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Vol 45 no 3, Aug 2023
Tasmanian Aboriginal (Pakana) Shell Necklaces
By Anne Schofield   |   August 2023   |   Vol 45 no 3

Antique jewellery dealer Anne Schofield recently exhibited a collection of rare Aboriginal shell necklaces from Tasmania, which were on show in June at her Woollahra gallery... Tasmanian Aboriginal shell work is unique, the patterns and shell types indicate the maker and also reflecta place or places, the ...

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Vol 45 no 3, Aug 2023
Wedgwood: Master Potter to the Universe
By Timothy Roberts   |   August 2023   |   Vol 45 no 3

Curator and historian Tim Roberts previews a new exhibition on the English ceramics firm Wedgwood, founded by Josiah Wedgwood in 1759, and linked with the British colonisation of Australia through its design and manufacture of the ‘Sydney Cove Medallions’ in 1789. These were made from Sydney clay sent...

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Vol 45 no 3, Aug 2023
The Great Kangaroo Wood Mystery
By R A Fredman   |   August 2023   |   Vol 45 no 3

Bob Fredman highlights an interesting discovery, English cabinetmakers using Australian rose mahogany as an exotic furniture timber in the early 19th-century. He suggests that, in the dearth of mentions of rose mahogany in early Australian furniture, there may be a major void in our knowledge and in our collect...

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Vol 45 no 3, Aug 2023
The York Street Synagogue Ark
By Jana Vytrhlik   |   August 2023   |   Vol 45 no 3

Two early arks held in the museum collection of The Great Synagogue in Elizabeth Street, Sydney are impressive examples of Australian furniture. Their distinct Egyptian style could have been a source of inspiration for the architectural style of the York Street Synagogue (1844). In her search for the...

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Vol 45 no 3, Aug 2023
Book Review: Ron Radford, John Glover. Patterdale Farm and the Revelation of the Australian Landscape
By Scott Carlin   |   August 2023   |   Vol 45 no 3

Leading colonial artist? Or leading early 19th-century British artist working in the colony of Van Diemen’s Land? Clearly the latter. Ron Radford, John Glover, Patterdale Farm and the Revelation of the Australian Landscape reveals how John Glover (1767–1849), a leading artist...

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Vol 45 no 2, May 2023
President’s Update
By Colin Thomas   |   May 2023   |   Vol 45 no 2

The year is off to a great start. The National Tour conducted in the ACT was fully subscribed with the maximum 40 members and state events have already been held in Tasmania and Victoria. Part of the Victorian event was a curator-led presentation by Emma Busowsky prior to viewing the Bendigo Art Gall...

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Vol 45 no 2, May 2023
Scrimshaw – real or fake?
By Colin Thomas   |   May 2023   |   Vol 45 no 2

Scrimshaw, the ancient art of the mariner is a most important part of our heritage which is very collectable. At times, scrimshaw achieves very high prices at auction in Australia and internationally. This article relates solely to Australian scrimshaw which is different in many ways to American or in...

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Vol 45 no 2, May 2023
Book review: Tokens of Love, Loss and Disrespect 1700–1850
By Peter Lane   |   May 2023   |   Vol 45 no 2

The subject of this book is coins
that have had their surfaces engraved, repurposed to communicate private and public messages. It covers the whole spectrum of engraved coins created
in Great Britain and forms a cultural backdrop of Australian culture, which pre-gold-rush era was predominantly
a ...

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Vol 45 no 2, May 2023
National tour to Canberra and Regional NSW
By Peter Crawshaw   |   May 2023   |   Vol 45 no 2

The March 2023 Australiana Society National Tour of Canberra and regions was a great success. Forty people from NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland enjoyed three days visiting diverse collections and houses. Each venue gave us a different perspective and appreciation of Australiana, in d...

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Vol 45 no 2, May 2023
The workshop of Sydney silversmith William Kerr
By Yvonne Barber   |   May 2023   |   Vol 45 no 2

A descendant of his sister Rebecca wrote about William Kerr in Australiana over 20 years ago, presenting new material obtained from family sources.1 With the help of other descendants, Yvonne Barber expands on this earlier work, beginning with the apprenticeship of William Kerr. She provides det...

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Vol 45 no 2, May 2023
Early Sydney silver flatware
By Christine Erratt   |   May 2023   |   Vol 45 no 2

Four early Australian silver flatware items – two spoons and two forks – engraved with the three initials ‘WEB’ present a challenge warranting research. Whose engraved initials (WEB) are they and when were the items made and engraved? Christine Erratt offers an answer. Four flatware1items with...

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Vol 45 no 2, May 2023
Australiana: Designing a Nation, Bendigo Art Gallery 18 March to 25 June 2023
By Emma Busowsky   |   May 2023   |   Vol 45 no 2

Bendigo Art Gallery has drawn on its collections, the Australiana Fund, other collections and especially the National Gallery of Victoria to mount a new survey of Australiana from British settlement to today. Obviously it cannot cover every aspect of Australiana, nor every way artists and crafts...

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Vol 45 no 1, Feb 2023
Australiana Society Tour of Bendigo and Castlemaine
By Robert Steven   |   February 2023   |   Vol 45 no 1

Victorian chairman Robert Stevens reports on a November 2022 tour to the Central Goldfields region.

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Vol 45 no 1, Feb 2023
The 2022 Peter Walker Fine Arts Writing Award
By Megan Martin   |   February 2023   |   Vol 45 no 1

I began last year’s judge’s report with the observation that the annual Peter Walker Fine Art Writing Award, established in 1999 to encourage authors to write for Australiana, had achieved its objectives. The four issues of Australiana published in 2022 confirm that judgement and show that th...

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Vol 45 no 1, Feb 2023
An Itinerant Australian Colonial Billiard Table
By John Wade   |   February 2023   |   Vol 45 no 1

The National Museum of Australia in Canberra has purchased an Australian billiard table, carved in high relief with multiple panels of scenes of colonial life, and its matching marking board. Its price of $1,100,000 sets a new record for a piece of Australian furniture. The NMA is not known for collecting Austr...

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Vol 45 no 1, Feb 2023
Kitchen inspirations: the recipe books of a Queensland flour manufacturer
By Megan Martin   |   February 2023   |   Vol 45 no 1

As far as eating paraphernalia goes, Australiana has previously covered dining tables and chairs, sideboards, ceramic plates, silver table ornaments, Splayds and even tea towels. Megan Martin demonstrates that it is about time we looked at recipe books, particularly as these Queensland examples ...

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Vol 45 no 1, Feb 2023
Unlocking the Story of Doulton’s ‘Australia 1886’ Vase
By Jon & Yvonne Douglas   |   February 2023   |   Vol 45 no 1

Queensland collectors Jon and Yvonne Douglas explain how their collecting of Doulton ceramics developed and how, as they read more and more about their passion, their interests deepened. Here they present their research into one particular example with Australian connections, a vase made in 1886 for the Colonia...

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Vol 44 no 4, Nov 2022
William Knox D'Arcy: Art Collector and Patron
By Dianne Byrne   |   November 2022   |   Vol 44 no 4

William Knox D’Arcy (1849–1917) is remembered today as an indefatigable adventurer, who through financial daring and
extraordinary good fortune, became the ‘founder’ of the modern oil industry in the Middle East. However, there is another
facet to his life, as the ex-Rockhampton solicitor who became a...

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Vol 44 no 4, Nov 2022
Arnott’s Kookaburra – a Mystery Biscuit
By Paul Gregson   |   November 2022   |   Vol 44 no 4

We sometimes forget that some artefacts are ephemeral. Paul Gregson reminds us that a biscuit can be a nostalgic piece of Australiana, though it may only exist now in images.

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Vol 44 no 4, Nov 2022
Queensland to a T Collection and Exhibition, State Library of Queensland
By Peter Spearritt   |   November 2022   |   Vol 44 no 4

Prodigious Australiana contributor Glenn R. Cooke is well known through his professional interests in Queensland art, decorative arts and social history. But that does not define Glenn; he loves ballroom dancing and gardens, as well as pursuing a sideline in collecting artefacts relating to his home stat...

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Vol 44 no 4, Nov 2022
H.A. Nielsen, Art Cabinet Maker, of Port Douglas, North Queensland
By John Wade   |   November 2022   |   Vol 44 no 4

Many colonial woodworkers, often trained in Britain or Europe, came to Australia and discovered the vast variety of native timbers suitable for carving or for making furniture and timber articles. Jewellery ‘book boxes’ made from several contrasting North Queensland timbers and bearing the stamp of ‘H.A. ...

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Vol 44 no 3, Aug 2022
1950s souvenir jewellery and art with Indigenous motifs
By Christine Erratt   |   August 2022   |   Vol 44 no 3

Finding more examples of the silver brooch with Indigenous motifs that she discussed in our May issue, Christine Erratt delved further into their history. In the National Archives of Australia, Christine uncovered the 1954 design registration applications.
Six different designs, of which five were inspired b...

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Vol 44 no 3, Aug 2022
Designs by Murdoch at the House of Georges
By James Stanton   |   August 2022   |   Vol 44 no 3

Fashion designer Margaret Murdoch (1912–1999) has been eclipsed by other members of the Murdoch family. In 1938 she went to London to gain experience in fashion design. Her move to the fashion capital of Paris on the eve of World War II led to disruption of her career path, with two stints of internment ...

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Vol 44 no 3, Aug 2022
Splayds – ‘the runcible spoon that captivated the world’
By Yvonne Barber   |   August 2022   |   Vol 44 no 3

Invented in 1948 and manufactured 'from the early 1950s, Splades or Splayds were a favourite gift for shower teas, weddings and Mothers’ Day in 1960s and 1970s Australia. We were vaguely aware that they might be an Australian innovation, but that wasn’t part of their advertising – they were prom...

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Vol 44 no 2, May 2022
Timber trays – fun and functional
By R A Fredman   |   May 2022   |   Vol 44 no 2

When furniture or crib board collecting becomes too hard, because of either their cost or scarcity or both, the average Australiana collector can turn to drinks trays. They can turn to drinks too, but this article is just about the trays.

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Vol 44 no 2, May 2022
Australiana Society Sydney Basin Tour, March 2022
By Peter Crawshaw   |   May 2022   |   Vol 44 no 2

Numbers were limited on the NSW Branch’s recent successful tour of the Sydney Basin, so one of the organisers, Peter Crawshaw, reports on it for members who were not able to take part in person, especially those who live outside Sydney. Colonial furniture collector Bob Fredman was honoured to be asked to give...

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Vol 44 no 2, May 2022
Madame Henry, Juliette Lebeau-Lopes-Rastoul-Henry
By Yvonne Barber   |   May 2022   |   Vol 44 no 2

Visions of a Republic. The work of Lucien Henry, the lavishly illustrated 2001 book produced for an exhibition on the designs and art of Lucien Henry (1850–1896), devotes more words to describing a photograph of the couple’s apartment in Darlinghurst (plate 1) than it does to describing his wife Juliette. Y...

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Vol 44 no 2, May 2022
Saving Currajong
By Jillian Dwyer   |   May 2022   |   Vol 44 no 2

Many buildings in Australia have been recognised for their architectural or historical significance, or their association with important individuals. Some have been preserved, and some have not. Jillian Dwyer relates the story of Currajong in Melbourne’s east, the Italianate villa built by the prominent colon...

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Vol 44 no 2, May 2022
Indigenous motifs on a silver brooch
By Christine Erratt   |   May 2022   |   Vol 44 no 2

We often recognise Australiana by the presence of motifs depicting Australia’s unique flora and fauna and, especially in the 19th century, representations of Indigenous figures. Anthropologists studied Indigenous people, while the things they made – much of it, what we would describe today as art – were r...

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Vol 44 no 2, May 2022
King Albert’s ‘Birthday Book’
By John Wade   |   May 2022   |   Vol 44 no 2

After Albert I King of the Belgians refused safe passage to Kaiser Wilhelm’s troops to attack France, Germany invaded neutral Belgium on 4 August 1914. Britain, bound by an 1839 treaty to support Belgium’s neutrality, declared war on Germany the same day. Australian Prime Minister Joseph Cook offered his go...

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Vol 44 no 2, May 2022
A presentation casket with carving by John K. Blogg, 1915
By Sarah Guest   |   May 2022   |   Vol 44 no 2

The box seen here shows the superb carving of John Kendrick Blogg, a successful and entrepreneurial industrial chemist who was born in 1851 in Canada, settled in the Surrey Hills region of Victoria in 1877 and died in 1936. His day job involved making perfumes and extracting essential oils. Family legend has it...

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Vol 44 no 2, May 2022
Contributing to Australiana
By John Wade   |   May 2022   |   Vol 44 no 2

The Australiana Society aims to support ‘researching, preserving and collecting Australia’s heritage’. As our readers have a range of interests and live in different states, so we try to cater to all interests and regions. However, we rely on what you submit. Everyone is welcome to submit articles for con...

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Vol 44 no 2, May 2022
President’s update
By Colin Thomas   |   May 2022   |   Vol 44 no 2

What an outstanding event the Sydney Basin Tour proved to be! While I have detailed this verbally and via personal email, it would be completely remiss of me not to publicly thank Robert Hannan, Peter Crawshaw, Andy Simpson and Tim Cha for their outstanding efforts in planning and delivering a wonderful event. ...

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Vol 44 no 2, May 2022
Looking for Paintings on Gum Leaves
By    |   May 2022   |   Vol 44 no 2

Paintings on gum leaves are a unique Australian tradition, which began in the 1850s or 1860s and still continues today. The earliest practitioner recorded is Arthur William Eustace (1820–1907), who was born in England and arrived in Victoria with his family in 1851. He found work as a shepherd near Chiltern i...

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Vol 44 no 2, May 2022
Spanish Craftsmen for the New Norcia Abbey in Western Australia. Part 1, Isidro Oriol
By Dorothy Erickson   |   May 2022   |   Vol 44 no 2

Most craftsmen who emigrated to colonial Australia were trained in the English, Scottish, Irish or German traditions. In Western Australia, several Spanish craftsmen were attracted by the monastery established by their compatriot Bendictine monks at New Norcia. Western Australian craftsmen, mostly using jarrah ...

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Vol 44 no 1, February 2022
Trevor John Kennedy AM 24.6.1942 – 28.11.2021
By Lesley Garrett, Anne Schofield & John Hawkins   |   February 2022   |   Vol 44 no 1

Lesley Garrett, a long-standing family friend, fondly recalls Trevor Kennedy's life and passion for collecting, amassing the most important collection of Australian decorative arts ever assembled... Anne Schofield, the source of much of the spectacular jewellery acquired for his collection, has her own distinct...

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Vol 44 no 1, February 2022
Henning Rathjen: Victorian art potter 1948–1968
By Anne Johnson & Anthony Armstrong   |   February 2022   |   Vol 44 no 1

In the aftermath of World War II, many commercial potteries were established in Australia to satisfy the market disrupted by hostilities, particularly for Japanese and European imports. While some of these new commercial potteries were established by immigrants from war-ravaged Europe, Henning Alfred Rathjen (1...

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Vol 44 no 1, February 2022
John Glover through the Claude Glass
By Glynnis Stevenson   |   February 2022   |   Vol 44 no 1

English painter John Glover once owned two Italian landscapes by the French painter known as Claude Lorrain. Claude's work prompted artists and tourists to view landscape in terms of art, so they would often look at 'Picturesque' scenery reflected in a tinted convex mirror known as a ‘Claude glass’, simulat...

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Vol 44 no 1, February 2022
Peter Walker Fine Art Writing Award 2021
By Megan Martin   |   February 2022   |   Vol 44 no 1

Peter Walker Fine Art established our annual Writing Award in 1999 to encourage writing for Australiana. At that time Australiana was a 32-page magazine, stapled, with three to five articles and a few black-and-white illustrations per issue. Twenty-two years on, the award has achieved its objectives. The Austra...

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Vol 44 no 1, February 2022
President’s Update
By    |   February 2022   |   Vol 44 no 1

I trust all members had an enjoyable festive season with the family and friends they were fortunate enough to be able to see. As I have stated all too often, COVID never ceases to amaze with the number of twists and turns it continues to deliver. Who would have ever thought that, with the vaccination levels mos...

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Vol 43 no 4, November 2021
Australiana Society tours 2021: Ballarat and Camperdown Tour
By Robert Stevens   |   November 2021   |   Vol 43 no 4

Australiana Society members visited the Ballarat region of Victoria in May, as part of a tour carefully planned by Victorian branch chair Robert Stevens. Luckily, it fell into a gap between COVID lockdowns, and gave members from several states a chance to get out, mingle and enjoy what the Victorian Central Gol...

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Vol 43 no 4, November 2021
Australiana Society tours 2021: Bathurst Heritage Weekend
By John Wade & Yvonne Barber   |   November 2021   |   Vol 43 no 4

Postponed several times due to Covid-19 restrictions, our plans for a visit to Bathurst in the NSW Central Tablelands, lands of the Wiradyuri Nation, finally came to fruition from 30 April to 2 May 2021, with the maximum
50 participants from five states taking part. Others were unable to attend for fear of not...

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Vol 43 no 4, November 2021
Book reviews
By Claire Blakey & Nat Williams   |   November 2021   |   Vol 43 no 4

Petra ten-Doesschate Chu and Max Donnelly with Andrew Montana and Suzanne Veldink, Daniel Cottier: Designer, Decorator, Dealer.
Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, Yale University Press, New Haven CT 2021. Hard cover,
256 pp, 200 illustrations, Booktopia price $59 plus postage.
Philip...

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Vol 43 no 4, November 2021
Australian flora and fauna on silver spoons 1971–2021
By Christine Erratt   |   November 2021   |   Vol 43 no 4

The late Professor Kenneth Cavill’s article published in Australiana1 identified about 50 spoons of Australian and British manufacture, marking royal
and other occasions, with heraldic motifs, maps of Australia or Tasmania and flora and fauna, made either in factories or in craft workshops. Overlapping almos...

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Vol 43 no 4, November 2021
The use of Australian tulip wood in Australian furniture and boxes
By David Bedford   |   November 2021   |   Vol 43 no 4

Decorative timber inlay work became popular in British and European furniture and other wooden items in the 18th century. European exploration of the so-called New World tropics and subsequent colonisation gave access to a greatly increased range of superb cabinet timbers. Cabinetmakers initially concentrated o...

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Vol 43 no 3, August 2021
Allen Duckworth, woodworker and native timbers crusader
By Yvonne Barber & John Wade   |   August 2021   |   Vol 43 no 3

In the preceding article, David Bedford identified four Australian manufacturers of cribbage boards: Grose Manufacturing Co of Brisbane; Clipsal, a brand name of Gerard Industries in Adelaide; John Sands & Co, founded in Sydney as Sands & Kenny in 1851; and Crown Mulga made by A.W.G. Davey & Sons Lt...

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Vol 43 no 3, August 2021
Australian cribbage boards – an affordable collectable
By David Bedford   |   August 2021   |   Vol 43 no 3

Both plain and novelty cribbage boards have been produced around the world for about 400 years. Australian-made cribbage boards can only be post–1788 and at this stage I know of no boards dating before the early 1800s, though very plain boards are difficult to date accurately. By the mid-19th century, many no...

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Vol 43 no 3, August 2021
Victoria’s earliest potteries
By Gregory Hill   |   August 2021   |   Vol 43 no 3

Greg Hill’s new research, using contemporary newspapers and other resources now easily available on Trove, has found a raft of previously unknown potteries operating in Victoria in the 19th century. These push back the dates of Victorian pottery manufacture into the 1840s. Many examples of these wares however...

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Vol 43 no 3, August 2021
Exhibition review: Paradise Lost – Thomas Griffiths Wainewright
By Scott Carlin   |   August 2021   |   Vol 43 no 3

Thomas Griffiths Wainewright (1794–1847) was early colonial Australia’s most sophisticated and glamourising portraitist. The current exhibition,
Paradise Lost – Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG) features 40 works by Wainewright together with contextual works by ...

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The Australiana Society acknowledges Australia’s First Nations Peoples – the First Australians – as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of this land and gives respect to the Elders – past and present – and through them to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.