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Museums and Collections
e-news
February 2018
Welcome to the latest issue of e-news from The University of Melbourne Museums and Collections. This electronic newsletter is circulated each month and provides information on current exhibitions, events and news items from the University’s museums and collections. For details of the individual collections explore the Museums and Collections website.
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News
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International Museums and Collections Award - Birmingham blog
Clare Fuery-Jones, a third year Bachelor of Arts student majoring in Art History and Philosophy at the University of Melbourne and 2017 recipient of the International Museum and Collections Award, recently commenced her month-long placement at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. Clare has been working closely with collections staff on projects across their museums and cultural collections, and with a special interest in decorative arts and the Arts and Crafts movement the campus and culturally rich city of Birmingham is providing much to inspire! You can follow Clare’s adventure via her blog.
The IMaC Award provides a unique international exchange opportunity for students between the University of Melbourne and the University of Birmingham. Recipients of the Award take part in a placement working with the collections and museums of the partner university. The Award enables them to develop professional skills in collections management, enrich their studies and the opportunity to consider collections within an international context.
Image: Winterbourne house and garden, University of Birmingham. Photography by Clare Fuery-Jones |
Rare prints conserved
Funding from the Miegunyah bequest has enabled conservation treatments of several rare prints from the Baillieu Library's Print Collection. The group of works selected for conservation are those frequently requested for Renaissance and Baroque classes taught at the University. The powerful engraving The Dragon Devouring the Companions of Cadmus (c.1588), which has frequently been out on loan received treatment, as did a second copy of this engraving which had previously been kept in storage due to its condition.
The Library’s collection of engravings after Andrea Mantegna was also conserved. Mantegna, one of the earliest Italian practitioners of the technique, only made a handful of impressions himself and oversaw the production of a group of further works. This important conservation work will help ensure the longevity of these rare prints and opens the door to their continued research, exhibition and enjoyment.
Image: Andrea Mantegna, The Risen Christ with St. Andrew and St. Longinus [detail], c.1470-1500. Baillieu Library Print Collection, University of Melbourne. Gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton 1959 |
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2018 Museums and Collections Projects Program – new projects coming soon
This year the Museums and Collections Projects Program (MCPP) will again be offering students, alumni and other interested individuals the opportunity to work behind the scenes with the University's museums and cultural collections. The projects are carefully designed to provide engaging, specialized experiences that have real value to participants through the acquisition of new vocational skills and the advancing of professional development and networks.
Engaging with a wide range of the University’s museums and collections, the projects offered this year will include cataloguing and research, preventative conservation, public programs, curation and exhibition development. As per previous years, the Program’s projects will add real value to the cultural collections by contributing to their long-term management and ensuring they remain an accessible, relevant and dynamic resource.
For more information on previous projects see the 2017 MCPP newsletter. The 2018 Projects List along with information on how to apply will be available via the Museums and Collections Projects Program website from late February.
Image: MCPP participant working on a plant specimen from the University of Melbourne Herbarium. Photography by Helen Arnoldi |
Australian sights revisited online
The University of Melbourne’s Digitisation Centre recently digitised over 1100 black and white photographs from the Commercial Travellers' Association collection held by the University of Melbourne Archives. Dating from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, these images depict popular Australian sights and holiday destinations of the time. Now all available online, the images have been catalogued by two student volunteers who have captured the place and date for the majority of the photographs where known.
Formed in 1880, the Victorian Commercial Travellers' Association was established to improve the conditions of employment and accommodation for commercial travellers. During the first half of the 20th century the Association took on an active role promoting Australia as an immigration and tourism destination through its two publications Australia Today and Australian Traveller.
You can now step back in time by searching the Archives’ Digitised Items catalogue for your favorite holiday spots, from bush to beach to city. See what has changed or what has stayed the same! Join the brave standing on the edge of a precipice in the Blue Mountains, NSW; snuggle a "native bear" at the Koala park, Pennant Hills, Sydney, NSW; see how pineapples grow at a pineapple plantation in Nambour, Queensland and cool off at Henley Beach, South Australia. Virtual Reality Archives style.
Image: Sunlight and shadow in the valleys of the Blue Mountains at Katoomba, NSW, 1938. Commercial Travellers' Association collection, University of Melbourne Archives |
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Grainger Museum Composer in Residence 2018 announced
Current Faculty of Fine Arts and Music postgraduate student, Lewis Ingham, has been appointed as the Grainger Museum Composer in Residence for 2018. This year’s Composer Residency focusses on the creation of a soundscape for the forthcoming Grainger Museum exhibition Objects of Fame: Nellie Melba and Percy Grainger.
Lewis’s soundscape will form the audio environment that visitors experience as they explore the exhibition. In creating the soundscape, Lewis will be responding directly to the theme of the exhibition, and will draw on sonic and material sources of inspiration including original recordings of Dame Nellie Melba and Percy Grainger, and elements of the rich material culture that surrounded these two famous musicians.
Lewis will be working in the Grainger Museum during the creation of the soundscape over the next months, and visitors can take the opportunity to talk to him about his work and compositional process.
Image: Lewis Ingham |
The Print Collection at your fingertips
The Baillieu Library Print Collection has added new pages to its website, including an online booking form for class visits during the academic year. Alongside the new education page, there is now a research page and a gallery of highlights which help to bring these meaningful works of art all the closer to the fingertips.
From the beginning of February, the entire Print Collection will become available through D Space, the Library’s digital repository. Researcher’s across the globe will then readily find print records and digital images through universal internet search engines.
Image: Highlights from the Print Collection now available online
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Events
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Fairy tales across the ages
Forum with Michelle J. Smith, Dr Helen Stuckey, Dr Athena Bellas and Dr Victoria Tedeschi
Ian Potter Museum of Art, Saturday 10 February 2018, 1.00pm to 3.00pm
Join us for an investigation of fairy tales across the ages from the 17th century to Disney through to modern day screen teens and adaptations. Held in conjunction with the exhibition All the better to see you with: Fairy tales transformed, this forum includes a line-up of academics, researchers and curators who will be discussing this fascinating topic.
Free event. Further information and bookings.
Image: Dina Goldstein, Snowy [detail] from the Fallen Princesses series, 2008. Courtesy of the artist |
Grainger at Home
Performance
Grainger Museum, Sunday 18 February 2018, 3.00pm to 4.00pm
With so many great men of Art, it is the women in their lives who can shine a focused light on their inner world. Join The Parlour for a preview of Grainger at Home, an exciting new work exploring the private and creative life of Percy Grainger, narrated by his wife Ella (played by Eva Torkkola). The preview will include selections from the script of this work along with songs by Percy Grainger and his friends. The cast also includes Karen Van Spall, Mezzo Soprano and Adam Miller, Baritone.
Free event. Further information and bookings.
Image: Percy Grainger and Ella Grainger, White Plains, New York, 1950. Photograph believed to be by Bernette Cross. Grainger Museum, University of Melbourne |
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Ancient theatres
Lecture by Emeritus Professor Frank Sear
Ian Potter Museum of Art, Saturday 24 February 2018, 1.00pm to 2.00pm
Join world-renowned architectural historian and former Chair of Classics at the University of Melbourne, Emeritus Professor Frank Sear as he uncovers the rich archaeological history of theatres across the world.
Professor Sear is a graduate of Cambridge University, where he completed both his undergraduate and postgraduate studies. He has published widely on his archaeological work and produced a number of books including Roman Wall and Vault Mosaics, Roman Architecture and Roman Theatres: an architectural study. He was Co-Director of the Australian Pompeii Project from 1978 to 1988, and since 1990 has directed the Australian Roman Theatres project, which involved surveying the theatres at Gubbio, Taormina, Benevento and Pompeii in Italy, Jerash in Jordan, and Orange in France. Professor Sear has also led numerous archaeological tours in Italy, Croatia, Greece, Turkey, the Middle East, Egypt, North Africa, Spain and France.
Free event. Further information and bookings.
Image: Nea Pathos Theatre, Cyprus. Photography by Dr Craig Barker
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Exhibitions at The University of Melbourne
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The cancer puzzle: Patterns, paradoxes and personalities
Medical History Museum, to Saturday 24 February 2018
The cancer puzzle: Patterns, paradoxes and personalities tells the story of cancer in Victoria. Through photographs, documents, medical equipment and personal reflections from patients, the exhibition looks at the early days of treatment, the pivotal moments of linking cause and effect and the development towards a therapeutic revolution.
Victoria has been at the forefront of cancer prevention in programs such as the reduction of tobacco consumption, public health campaigns around sun and UV protection, encouraging the uptake of screening through campaigns such as Slip, Slop Slap. Through the work of the Cancer Council, Victoria’s smoking rate is among the lowest in the developed world and first to initiate plain cigarette packaging, the impact of which can be seen from the Cancer Council cigarette packet collections on show.
Victoria also has a long history of using radiation to treat patients and leads the way with innovative technologies now featured in the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre. The exhibition shows early examples of this technology from the Peter MacCallum Radiology Collection. Differing responses of individuals with cancer is also revealed through the art of contemporary artists who have cancer, sometimes in words and sometimes through their art.
Image: Plastic head shield, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre Radiology collection |
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Angela Brennan: Forms of life
Ian Potter Museum of Art, to Sunday 25 February 2018
Angela Brennan: Forms of life is a response by Melbourne-based artist Angela Brennan to the University of Melbourne’s collection of Greek and Cypriot artefacts. Featuring a newly-commissioned body of work, Brennan’s ceramics, drawings and fabric works will be presented alongside objects from the University’s antiquities collection. Informed by stylistic properties such as shape, decorative marks, and material textures, embedded in the artefacts, Brennan’s new work considers the question of how pre-modern artefacts may contribute to contemporary practice.
Image: Objects from the University's Classics and Archaeology Collection currently on show as part of Angela Brennan: Forms of life exhibition |
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All the better to see you with: Fairy tales transformed
Ian Potter Museum of Art, to Sunday 4 March 2017
Curated by Samantha Comte, All the better to see you with: Fairy tales traces the genre of the fairy tale, exploring its function in contemporary society. The exhibition presents contemporary art work alongside a selection of key historical fairy tale books from the University of Melbourne's Rare Books collection that provide re-interpretations of the classic fairy tales for a 21st century context, including Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel and The Little Mermaid.
Featuring international and Australian artists, All the better to see you with explores artists’ use of the fairy tale to express social concerns and anxieties surrounding issues such as the abuse of power, injustice and exploitation.
This major summer exhibition is presented across all three levels of the museum and is accompanied by a catalogue and public and education programs.
Image: Miwa Yanagi, Gretel [detail], 2004. Collection of the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Courtesy of the artist and Yoshiko Isshiki Office, Tokyo
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Grainger photographed: Public façades and intimate spaces
Grainger Museum, to Sunday 1 April 2018
Percy Grainger understood the power of the photograph to document significant events and to entice and persuade an adoring public. This exhibition will look at aspects of portrait photography through the prism of Grainger’s diverse collection and display fine formal portraits from some of the world’s most highly regarded studios alongside intimate images of Grainger’s private life.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of free public programs, including talks by the exhibition curator Brian Allison and Naomi Cass from the Centre for Contemporary Photography, portrait photographers and academics, touching upon everything from technique, the historical context of the works on display and current practices in portrait photography.
Image: Count Jean De Strelecki, Rose and Percy Grainger, c.1919. Grainger Museum, University of Melbourne |
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