I S S U E 1 9 : O C T O B E R 2 0 0 9

On 16 July, after almost 120

years, one of the Nicholson

Museum’s most beautiful,

important, valuable and

certainly heaviest artefacts

finally moved into the

museum itself.

The 3.4 tonne red granite block, a column capital from the Temple of Bastet at Bubastis in northern Egypt dates from about 900 BC. It is decorated on two sides with the face of the great cow-eared goddess Hathor.

The story of how the University acquired the capital, surely one of its best investments, and of its dramatic move into the museum, which was recorded by the ABC’s 7.30 Report, is told on page 3 by Michael Turner, Senior Curator of the Nicholson Museum.

New home for Hathor

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R The coming months offer a wide range of exhibitions and programs that will take us into 2010 – the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Nicholson Museum, Australia’s first university museum.

Makarr-garma: Aboriginal collections from a Yolngu perspective brings together artworks, natural history specimens, historical and contemporary photographs in a new exhibition in the Macleay Museum, curated by Dr Joseph Neparrnga Gumbula, that takes visitors into the Yolngu world in Arnhem Land.

The University Art Gallery features the work of Chicago-based artist Annemarie Grgich in a compelling exhibition of the artist’s books and collage paintings titled Archaeologies of the extraordinary everyday. This will be followed by Mirror Mirror, an exhibition displaying the international phenomenon of artists using mirrors to tease out the act of looking, spanning pop and kinetic art to diverse conceptual practices.

The exhibition Egyptians, Gods and Mummies: travels with Herodotus, now on in the Nicholson Museum, provided staff with some interesting challenges during its installation. The exhibition is centred around the granite capital of Hathor from the temple of Bastet at Bubastis. The Nicholson’s Senior Curator Michael Turner writes about the capital’s remarkable history on the opposite page.

In August of this year the capital rejoined the collection in what was a mammoth task involving engineers, riggers, stonemasons, curators and collection managers (not to mention the closure of the museum for three days).

As we approach our anniversary year, we now have Facebook sites for each of our museums; yet another way to stay connected with our enthusiastic supporters who have in turn provided us with valuable feedback on what we are doing and could be doing.

The wonders of the digital age. I think Sir Charles might have approved.

Finally, a warm welcome to Matt Poll who has taken up the designated position of Assistant Curator, Indigenous Heritage. Matt is based at the Macleay Museum, continuing work on the University’s repatriation program and building relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities for the interpretation and care of the Indigenous collections.

There is a lot planned for 2010. More about that in the next newsletter.

DAV ID ELL IS D I R E C T O R

M U S E U M S A N D C U LT U R A L E N G A G E M E N T

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Some readers will remember the People Power

Politics exhibition of 2008, examining the work

of the first generation of anthropologists at

the University of Sydney. Dr Joe Neparrnga

Gumbula, an ARC Indigenous Research Fellow

at the Koori Centre and guest curator at Sydney

University Museums (pictured above), has created

his response to the same archival records,

photographs and objects in the exhibition

Makarr-garma: Aboriginal collections from a

Yolngu perspective.

Preparations for the exhibition have given

Macleay curators an opportunity to document

the living history of the collection – and to bring

out some little-seen cultural material such as the

pandanus sail pictured above, which was used in

1945–6 and probably photographed and brought

to the University by anthropologist WL Warner.

Makarr-garma opens to the public on

29 November 2009.

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“There is a truly remarkable sanctuary of Bastet at Bubastis. Other sanctuaries may be larger, or have cost more to build, but none is more beautiful”, wrote the Greek traveller Herodotus in the middle of the fifth century BC.

The Hathor capital, now the centrepiece of the Nicholson Museum’s new exhibition Egyptians, gods and mummies: travels with Herodotus is from that sanctuary. It is most likely that Herodotus will have passed through the hall whose roof it supported before writing these words in what is now Book 2 of his monumental work – the Histories.

The site of Bubastis, in the Nile Delta near the modern town of Zagazig, was excavated by the Swiss archaeologist Édouard Naville between 1887 and 1889 on behalf of the London-based Egypt Exploration Fund. Only scattered fragmentary remains were recovered, which included four monumental Hathor capitals (now in Paris, London, Boston and Berlin) and a smaller, less decorative one – the Nicholson capital, on which Naville noted red paint on the lips (sadly now gone). As was the way at the time, many of the finds from such excavations were taken out of Egypt and distributed to individuals and institutions that had contributed financially.

In 1860, Sir Charles Nicholson had returned to England, from where he continued to promote tirelessly the interests of both the University he had helped found and the museum that bore his name. In the mid 1880s, he helped

found a Sydney branch of the Egypt Exploration Fund, of which Josiah Mullens became the energetic vice-president. Mullens, one of the earliest chairs of the Sydney Stock Exchange, was also one of the first true friends of the Nicholson Museum, later sitting on its Committee of Management from 1902 to 1915.

In 1889, the Egypt Exploration Fund, at the instigation of both Nicholson and Mullens, donated the Hathor capital to the University. It was sent “in recognition of the eminent services of Mr Mullens, and of the generous support which he, together with James Fairfax Esq. and other citizens of Sydney, have given to our work”, and also in recognition of the subscription paid by the University to the Egypt Exploration Fund – the annual sum of one guinea (about $2.50).

From the moment it arrived however, the weight of the capital has caused headaches. Initially there was a worry that it was going to ‘sink into the ground’. As a result, when the museum moved to new premises in 1926, the capital was left where it was, outside what is now the Oriental Studies Room. As the University’s Quadrangle developed, it became little more than an unappreciated decorative feature in a common walkway.

On 16 July 2009, in an operation taking three days and captured for posterity by the ABC’s 7.30 Report, the capital was finally moved into the Nicholson Museum. A special reinforced plinth had to be made to take the weight, especially to avoid any further headaches as the capital now sits directly above the office of Sydney University Museums Director David Ellis!

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Michael Turner

How Hathor came to Sydney

Hathor prepares to move to its new home.

Land in Vanuatu: the Mother under threat

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Among the Macleay Museum’s historical material related to the independent Pacific nation of Vanuatu are two items that resonate with as much intensity today as they did a century ago. The first is a metal plaque dated 1885 declaring an expatriate land demarcation on Malo island. The second is a 1913 deed of conveyance transferring land on the island of Tangoa from Burns Philp & Co to the New Hebrides Presbyterian Mission. Both would spark instant recognition and impassioned discussion among present-day ni-Vanuatu (people of Vanuatu) as they deal with the most intensely debated topic of the nation: land.

1913 deed of conveyance relating to land on Tangoa

(Macleay ET84.174.6)

Kirk Huffman

For ni-Vanuatu land is the Mother (‘Mama graon’ or ‘Mother ground’ in Bislama, the nation’s lingua franca). All indigenous ni-Vanuatu have by birthright access to their traditional land areas. ‘Mama graon’

sustains people physically and spiritually; indeed land and people are one. Many different traditional land custodianship systems operate throughout the archipelago, however in general land cannot be sold or belong to one particular individual. Land can be looked after and used by appointed members of particular clans or lineages who have usufruct rights over it on behalf of ancestors and descendents from the past and on into the future. The concept of ‘selling’ land, as in western freehold systems, is completely foreign – almost unthinkable – although the concept of ‘leasing’ land can be acceptable. This over-simplification of many extremely complex systems gives a general idea of ni-Vanuatu concepts.

Westerners have tried, by fair means and foul, to acquire land in the archipelago since the late 1860s, and those attempts continue up to the present day. The mistakes and mistaken assumptions have remained essentially the same over nearly a century and a half – basically, ‘white men’ have assumed that they were purchasing land, while ni-Vanuatu assumed they were leasing it. The struggle of ni-Vanuatu for independence – fuelled by a desire to retain the islands’ languages and cultures and recover alienated land – delivered a solution. Upon independence from the French-British Condominium Government on 30 July 1980, all alienated land in the new republic returned to its traditional owners. The restriction of land ownership to such owners became enshrined in the Constitution.

Different aspects of these expatriate land alienation attempts can be illustrated through the two items from the Macleay – the plaque from Malo and the Tangoa document.

By the late 1880s, French and British/Australian interests were in intense competition to obtain the ‘rights’ to as much land as possible in the then New Hebrides. From Nouméa,

the Compagnie Calédonienne des Nouvelles-Hébrides (CCNH), led by Irish-born naturalised French citizen John Higginson, conducted forays throughout the islands to get ni-Vanuatu to ‘put their mark’ on ‘White Man’s legal paper’ in exchange for small amounts of cash, alcohol, stick tobacco, axes, firearms and cloth. Not to be outdone, in 1889 Victoria’s high society founded the Australasian New Hebrides Company, with similar aims. Both companies collapsed by the 1890s, Higginson’s company being later assisted by the French government, while the Victorian effort was taken over by Burns, Philp & Co.

Into this maelstrom also leapt numerous individuals, such as the Englishman George de Latour, a man still remembered by ni-Vanuatu. The Macleay plaque states that Latour ‘bought’ 22,000 acres from the chiefs and people of Malo in 1885. Latour settled on the small island of Aore just north of Malo (for his own purposes he inveigled a British warship to shell one of the Aore villages). He also adorned his fence with the notice: “Dogs and Niggers are forbidden to enter inside the Portals of these Gates. Any Dogs or Niggers found therein will suffer the Penalty of Death”. He was eventually killed by a man from the neighbouring island of Santo.

The Macleay conveyance document introduces us to just about the only group of white people who were sympathetic to indigenous interests at that time – the missionaries of the Presbyterian Church. Fearful that too much land might be alienated by uncaring expatriates, the church began a far-sighted campaign to obtain land in trust for future generations of ni-Vanuatu. The 1913 document, referring to land on Tangoa off the south coast of Santo, relates to this history. It details Burns, Philp & Co’s transfer of land it had obtained from a Captain Thomas Williams of Sydney to the Presbyterian Church, enabling the church to consolidate its holdings on Tangoa, where they have a large and respected training school to this day.

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Metal Malo land notice 1885 (Macleay ET84.174.2).

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Such conveyances to the Presbyterian Church were common throughout the islands at this time, following the 1911–12 tours of Edward Jacomb, an English private lawyer who travelled the islands to try and outline to ni-Vanuatu how to protect their landrights. During the subsequent 1912 tour of the French warship Kersaint, many of the local leaders Jacomb had spoken to were arrested, signalling the direction of France’s interests.

In some parts of Tanna there was a different reception to the Kersaint’s visit. Here the Presbyterian Church had been overly oppressive and some chiefs interpreted the visit as a sign of French government support for the traditional chiefs against the British. In 2006 the then French president, Jacques Chirac, received a formal token of appreciation for the Kersaint visit from a Tannese chief through the presentation of a Kweriya feather pole during the official opening celebrations of the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris.

Another modern-day effect of the land grabs comes from a Tannese man whose great-grandfather had served as a bodyguard for the Presbyterians and also permitted the church to lease some coastal clan lands in exchange for a small amount of money and a large bag of sugar. In early 2009, this writer was requested to assist the descendant to find the original lease agreement to ensure recognition of the original covenant.

Current expatriate land speculation in Vanuatu ballooned after the passing of a Strata Title Act in 2000, apparently permitting the subdivision of leases, in spite of the 1970s

Anglo-French declaration that land lease subdivision was illegal. Things have now moved so fast that currently 90 per cent of coastal land around the coast of Efate island, the home of the capital Port Vila, is estimated to be in expatriate hands. This has caused growing concern and alarm among many ni-Vanuatu, who fear that this ‘disease’ will spread to other islands and threaten the nation’s future stability and security. A National Land Summit in September 2006 attempted to make the government move to protect indigenous land rights from inappropriate western models. This was followed up by the National Land Workshop, held in southeastern Malakula in April 2009. The workshop’s resulting Lamap Declaration gave eight strong recommendations to the government – one of which is that the government scrutinise the work of real estate agents in the country.

Recent international fora and television programs have touched upon the growing expatriate land alienation problems in Vanuatu, and the benefits of retaining traditional

agricultural, and economic systems within the Melanesian region. As the majority rural populations within Melanesia retain their lands and associated systems, they are one of the areas of the world least affected by the current global financial instability. It may therefore behove the ‘developed’ world to try and learn something from Melanesian land models – and not try and change them to fit an outdated ‘free market economy’ model.

Kirk Huffman is Honorary Curator of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre and an Honorary Associate of the Macleay Museum. At Vanuatu’s independence in July 1980 he was the Curator (National Museum) of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre. Readers interested in an anthropologist’s view of the current worldwide financial crisis may wish to read the article available at www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/02/08/1234027847284.html

Left: Contrary to certain western-influenced thinkers who maintain that subsistence agriculture in Melanesia overburdens women, real traditional gardening techniques combine both male and female inputs in a sophisticated manner. This fine balance tends to break down with ‘modernisation’ or ‘development’. Here Raga-speaking men and women work together in the proper way on the ‘taboo’ ritual garden of a high-ranking man related to them. The woman in the right foreground uses the traditional wooden hooked gaitegi to break up the earth. Northwestern Pentecost Island, northern-central Vanuatu. Photo: K Huffman, September 2004.

Centre: Everything comes from the land and is a part of it: security, food, languages, people – and their costumes and rituals. Without access to land, the cultures will die out. Some of the products of the land (twined fibre skirts, sacred leaves, mineral facepaints, woven pandanus status head decorations – and the woven pandanus money payment mat hanging in the background) are seen in this recent female grade-taking ritual from the ‘Nabwol’ peoples of the interior of southeastern Malakula Island, northern-central Vanuatu. Photo: K Huffman, July 2008.

Right: Land provides the basis of everything in Vanuatu. Many (but not all) areas have relatively abundant supplies of clean sweet fresh water available, a situation somewhat normal in the larger tropical islands. In such areas piped ‘tap’ water is a luxury and not by definition a ‘necessity’. Here, a group of young Sa-speaking women return in the early evening to their village with bamboos full of fresh water from clear springs in the hills above. This absolutely normal healthy daily activity provides such women with hours of walking, talking, discussion and laughter; benefits that life in the ‘modern’ world may often not provide. Bunlap village, southeastern Pentecost Island. Photo: K Huffman, courtesy Vanuatu Cultural Centre, June 1987.

IMage reMOved frOM ONlINe verSION due TO culTural SeNSITIvITy reaSONS

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Matthys Gerber Ultra 2000 Fisher Library foyer

A wild and high-keyed psychedelic abstract by Matthys Gerber, Ultra (2000), has recently been installed in the foyer of Fisher Library. Gerber’s painting sets up a dialogue with other works currently hanging in the library, including non-figurative works by an earlier generation of modernists like Margo Lewers and Dusan Marek, and semi-figurative works by Shay Docking and Peter Sparks.

Gerber, a senior lecturer in painting at Sydney College of the Arts, takes abstraction and its history as his subject. Abstract painting was one of the most controversial and enduring aspects of 20th-century art, morphing through a range of styles and movements.

In Ultra, tangles of different abstraction (biomorphic forms, expressionistic drips, geometric patterning, optical art) pulse and fold across the canvas, creating the illusion of three-dimensional depth then flattening back to two dimensions. Like Frankenstein’s monster, the painting is cobbled together from disparate elements – drips ‘fall up’ the canvas, cartoon-like gestures wrestle with more serious and ‘acceptable’ forms of abstraction. At once kitsch and serious, calculated and improvised, Ultra deliberately embraces the contradictory. As with much abstraction, its meaning defies language, operating as a visual experience.

It may be no coincidence that Gerber chose as his title the name the British gave to intelligence decrypted from German communications during the Second World War – because the information was more important than top secret it was deemed ‘ultra’ secret. In his abstract paintings Gerber can be seen to act as a kind of cipher – translating and decrypting then re-encrypting various gestures of abstraction.

On the wall A regular feature on the University art collections around campus.

Matthys GerberUltra 2000oil and acrylic on polyester180 x 180cm

luke Parker Exhibitions Officer, Sydney University Museums

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Scanning for ancient secretsIn June, a 2000-year-old Egyptian child

mummy from the Nicholson Museum

underwent a state-of-the-art CT scan

to detect what secrets lie beneath its

wrappings. Using cutting-edge technology at

Central Sydney Imaging the scan produced

a clear and detailed 3D colour image of the

mummy, which gave indisputable information

about the techniques of mummification

and how old the child was when it died.

Acquired by Sir Charles Nicholson, Horus

has been in the museum’s collection since

1860, but there have always been questions

about the mummy’s sex, with the coloured

mask suggesting it was a girl. The scan has

provided the definitive answer – it’s a boy!

Janet davey

I often wonder what the ancient Egyptians would have thought about their bodies surviving into a world where modern technology can see through mummy wrappings and view what lies beneath. Even though their society

led the ancient world in medical and scientific practices, could they have possibly imagined that in 2000 years scientists and medical experts would be examining three-dimensional scans of their bodies and asking questions about their remains?

One thing I do know is that they would be hoping to have their names spoken aloud. Ancient texts tell us the ancient Egyptians wanted to have their names spoken into eternity. Without a name a person did not exist and could not hope for an afterlife. Fortunately, in the case of the child mummy in the collection of the Nicholson Museum, a name has survived – Horus.

Horus is one of the lucky ones, as many mummies have survived to the modern world without a ‘passport’ that tells us who they were and where they lived. In fact of the more than 14 Egyptian child mummies from the Graeco-Roman Period (c 332 BC to c AD 395) that I have studied for my PhD in Forensic Egyptology, only Horus has an Egyptian name. For identification purposes, the others have been given names linked to where they have been studied or displayed. Perhaps a name such as Stanford, Leiden or Altdorf will be enough to give them peace and a long, healthy afterlife.

If this is so, why am I worrying about personally identifying the remains of children who lived over two thousand years ago? Apart from meeting the ancient Egyptians’ desire for a name to take them into eternity, why is it important to identify them individually?

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One reason is that these mummies were once living people who belonged to families who cared enough to mummify their little bodies. Another reason is that there is a dearth of information about children in ancient Egypt. There are questions to be answered about environmental hazards, possible life expectancy, age at death and any injuries or diseases suffered by children. The latest Computerised Tomography (CT) scanning allows for detailed study of child mummies. For example, we can identify injuries and determine if they occurred before or after death, while Dentascans give clear pictures of the dental development and any abnormalities within the mouth. It is even possible to load CT scan data into a workstation and complete a computer-generated facial reconstruction.

I first studied child mummies in the 1990s when a team CT scanned two child mummies from the Australian Institute of Archaeology in Melbourne. Looking back on the technology it seems almost antiquated, but at the time we called it ‘leading edge’. After CT scanning the two mummies it took many years of investigation and hunting around the world to find more child mummies to study.

In fact mummy research is similar to detective work with leads suddenly appearing when a contact asks if I know about a mummy in Egypt, Pittsburgh or Sydney. I hear about mummies held in odd places such as a Swiss village archive. Travel is therefore vital as it allows me to follow new leads, meet fellow researchers and discuss joint investigative projects, such as my work with the Nicholson Museum’s Michael Turner.

Continues next page.

Opposite page: Composite image showing the mask placed on the mummy of Horus and the results of the CT scan carried out in June.

This page: Images from the CT scan of Horus, including one clearly showing his penis – an image that settled longstanding debate over whether he was a boy or girl.

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Teamwork is also essential as it is not possible for one person to obtain all the skills and training required to study a mummy. CT scan suppliers such as Toshiba need to collaborate with hospital radiologists and radiographers. Once the scans are available the team grows depending on what has been found. The key experts to assist a forensic Egyptologist include a forensic pathologist, who interprets the data, including injuries, skeletal abnormalities, dental conditions, artefacts of mummification and possibly the cause of death.

The scan of Horus in June this year not only confirmed that he was a boy, but also revealed that he appeared to belong to a wealthy family, as his body was mummified using the most elaborate method: his brain had been extracted via the nose and his internal organs removed through a large hole in the left side of the abdomen. The scan showed that some organs had been wrapped and returned to the body after

being dried by being covered in natron, a naturally occurring salt in Egypt. We are still trying to locate his heart but it must be in there somewhere. Removal of the heart was against the religious practice of ancient Egyptians, who believed that it must remain in the body for the final judgement.

Early evidence from the CT scans suggests that Horus had suffered severe injuries to his right thorax. At least four holes were discovered in his chest and as a forensic Egyptologist I became excited at the idea of finding the possible cause of death. Lauren Fogarty of Toshiba Australia and I spent hours studying data, and she found a pathway had been forced through the linen bandages in the area of these injuries, debunking the idea of a crime being committed against little Horus. In fact it appears the holes were caused by an endoscopic study carried out in the 1990s, when a medical team was attempting to harvest organ tissue for a study into

infectious diseases. At first I was disappointed that no cause of death was evident – but then I was pleased to know that little Horus had not died a violent death.

Together with my colleagues at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine in Melbourne I am continuing the search for the heart of Horus, and anything else that may shed more light on how he lived and died.

Janet Davey is a forensic Egyptologist and a PhD candidate in the Department of Forensic Medicine at Monash University. She is based at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, Melbourne.

Above: Lauren Fogarty of Toshiba Australia and Janet Davey examine CT scans of Horus.

Right: Janet Davey with Horus ahead of the CT scan.

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A passionate encounterTrinity gurich

Ever since Trinity Gurich was a little girl she has been

obsessed with Ancient Egypt. So, when she had

the opportunity to choose a destination for her Year 10

work experience this year, she naturally turned to Sydney

University Museums.

Bathurst, my home town, has great museums and galleries, but nothing with a collection of antiquities. When my mother suggested I try the Nicholson Museum to see whether they had a work

experience program, I knew it would be the perfect place to complement my Year 10 studies.

When I received the email saying they would gladly have me for a few days I could barely contain my excitement; while other students in my year would be spending their week in beauty salons, I would be going to the historic Nicholson Museum!

Don’t get me wrong, I did learn some interesting beauty tips along the way – like Agatha Christie’s penchant for using face cream to clean ivory artefacts in the field at Nimrud!

While at the Nicholson I was given various jobs to do, some more entertaining than others. A particular highlight was the opportunity to work on a travelling exhibition that will visit Bathurst Regional Art Gallery in November – the first time treasures from the Nicholson will travel to a regional area.

I was not only given a sneak peak as to what will be in the exhibition, but I was also able to help gather labels and signage that will be used in the display. This was a fantastic experience because it gave me the opportunity to scour every nook and cranny of the museum. When the exhibition finally comes to Bathurst I will be able to walk around knowing that I actually helped to bring an exhibition together.

The museum staff were wonderful to work with, and all so generous with their time and expertise. I am now very clear about what I want to study, and yes, I even know which university I want to go to! I had not contemplated my future all that seriously before my work experience stint at the Nicholson.

All in all my time at the Nicholson Museum was not long enough. I could have easily spent another year just walking through the museum, and another decade walking through the narrow aisles of the museum’s storage area.

Who knows, maybe I will one day.

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Mr V-C, ladies and gentlemen,

Having endured many months of old age, serious illness and grinding poverty, it is wonderful to behold so many beautiful paintings and drawings, selected and arranged with such skill by Ann Stephen.

I think I may praise them without any loss of modesty because I did not paint or draw any of them. They are all beautiful examples of first-rate art. Nothing is here that is purely fashionable. One may search in vain for a Tim Storrier or a Tim Maguire. Nor is there anything of the comfortable middlebrow. Mush like Norman Lindsay and David Boyd.

As you all must know, I intend to bequeath my collection to the University of Sydney. What you see here is but a slice of it. There is more, much more of it. But the University will not get it at once. I have to expire first, although I do not think there will be any great delay on that score. That done, my daughter will own the collection for her life. After that it is the University’s.

Mr V-C, might I be so presumptuous as to express the hope that the University will one day build a major art gallery for its collections. Oxford has the Ashmolean, Cambridge has the Fitzwilliam. Every major university ought to have a major gallery.

Thank you all my friends for being so kind to come. To the V-C, moritorus te saluto.

Surrounded by more than 100 densely hung artworks and before a host of luminaries from both the law and art worlds, the University’s Vice-Chancellor and Principal Dr Michael Spence launched the new exhibition Collecting passions: a century of modernism from the collection of Justice Roddy Meagher in the University Art Gallery on 30 July.

Spence praised both Meagher’s generosity and passion for the visual arts, which began in the 1950s when he was studying at the University of Sydney. Meagher’s response, printed below, lays out with characteristic wit his intention to pass on the collection to a new generation of Australians.

Speech by Justice Roddy Meagher,

University Art Gallery, Thursday 30 July 2009

MeagherModern

Top: Vice-Chancellor Dr Michael Spence speaks at the opening of the exhibition Collecting passions: a century of modernism from the collection of Justice Roddy Meagher.

Right: Roddy Meagher with Ann Stephen, Senior Curator of the University Art Gallery.

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Grace Cossington Smith is among Meagher’s favoured artists. His collection includes a staggering 19 of her works that span four decades, including one of the artist’s most striking landscapes, Black mountain (1931).

While renowned for her modernist landscapes, this powerful watercolour is unusual in both its location and treatment. The Sydney modern rarely travelled interstate to paint but had gone down to Canberra that year to give art lessons to Lady Isaacs, the new governor-general’s wife. There Cossington Smith painted the dominating natural backdrop of the new bush capital as it was then – bare and treeless – making it as black as its name. Without the title, Canberra’s mountain is almost unrecognisable today in its reforested state, crowned by a corny tower and surrounded by artificial lake and various icons of state.

ann Stephen, Senior curator of the university art gallery and art collections, made the modernist selection from Meagher’s rich collection – including works by Manet, Toulouse-lautrec, Bonnard, rouault and several prints by Matisse and Picasso – alongside australian artists. She decided to devote one wall of the exhibition to 13 works by grace cossington-Smith, and describes one of these dazzling paintings here.

Much of the drama of the work is a result of the artist’s heightened use of colour and the brilliant exploitation of unpainted ground. She inserts a thick red band that skirts the foreground, offset by complementary bands of green to indicate hedges and bushes. At its centre the surface of the light brown card dominates, broken only by a few thin red tracks, maybe fencing, that form part of a larger spiral of lines that fan out, animating both sky and mountain. The pale ground contrasts with the blocky black silhouette along the high horizon, giving the entire landscape a powerful rhythm.

While the feathery strokes across the sky suggest her characteristic brushstroke, the intense almost abstract colour applied with an expressionist vigour owes much to Wassily Kandinsky and the other painters of Der Blaue Reiter group. Perhaps it was the unfamiliar rural landscape that prompted Cossington Smith to recall those early experiments going on in Munich when she visited Europe in 1912–14. Certainly their desire to express art’s spiritual function through abstracted landscapes held much appeal for the Sydney modernist.

Grace Cossington Smith, Black mountain 1931. Watercolour with gouache over pencil.

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Image: William Holman Hunt, The bride of Bethlehem 1879–84. Oil over gesso on canvas, backed on panel, 50.8 by 41.3 cm. Private collection, England; courtesy of Nevill Keating Pictures Ltd.

Image opposite page: Silver shekel, 13.31 g, diameter 22 mm (palaeo-Hebrew legends), O Chalice; above, date (Year 3, AD 68), ‘Shekel of Israel’; dotted circle; R. Pomegranates; ‘Jerusalem the Holy’; dotted circle. NM2004.517: AB Triggs Collection. Photographs: N Hardwick.

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A chance discovery of ancient Jewish coins in a painting by the famous British Pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt led Nicholas Hardwick on a journey into the mind of the artist.

A few years ago, I was visiting the galleries devoted to 19th century British art in the Art Gallery of New South Wales. There were a number of paintings on loan from the collection of John Schaeffer, the businessman and art collector, who is also a significant benefactor to the University of Sydney. What caught my eye were the coins in the woman’s headdress in the painting by the famous British Pre-Raphaelite artist, William Holman Hunt, entitled The bride of Bethlehem. Hunt (1827–1910) was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in the middle of the 19th century. The Pre-Raphaelites aimed to return to the style, artistic techniques and themes popular before the Renaissance, which was the time of the famous Italian artist Raphael (1483–1520). Hunt’s most famous painting is The Light of the World, a depiction of Jesus Christ painted in 1851–3.

Painted between 1879 and 1884, The bride of Bethlehem portrays the Virgin Mary as a woman in the bridal dress of the Middle East. She wears a headdress of coins of a sort which was popular in the region in the 19th century. When I encountered the painting for the first time on that day in the gallery I immediately saw, as a coinage expert, that the

coins above her nose and left eye were both sides of a silver shekel, which was struck during the 1st Jewish Revolt against the Romans (AD 66–70). Suppressed by the Roman general Titus, the future emperor (AD 79–81), the revolt is famous for the last desperate stand of the Jews at Masada in southern Israel, where the Roman siege ramp can be seen today and a hoard of these coins has been found, buried by the Jews in perhaps the last days of the struggle.

On the obverse (the coin on the right in the painting) is represented a chalice, above which is the date of the year of the revolt, surrounded by the ancient Hebrew legend “Shekel of Israel”, and on the reverse, on the left, are three pomegranates and the legend “Jerusalem the Holy”.

Upon seeing this coin, I said to myself, “I can see what the artist is doing. He is using the coin to place the representation of the woman in the historical and cultural context of the time of the birth of Christ”. However, this discovery led me on a journey, which was far more complex than this initial, albeit accurate, first impression.

Continues next page.

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I set out to identify the other coins in the headdress. Careful study showed that only Jewish coins are being portrayed, and I checked Greek and Roman coins extensively in order to exclude them as possible candidates. The Jewish coins in the painting come from three major series, those of the Hasmonaean Kings of Judea (128/7–37 BC), the First Jewish Revolt and the Second Jewish Revolt (AD 132–135), also known as the Bar-Kokhba Revolt. What is interesting is that the artist has copied the details of the coins, but when the original coins are bronze, as in the case of the Hasmonaean and the Second Revolt series, he has represented them as silver, like the shekel of the First Revolt. Furthermore, the smaller Hasmonaean coins and the larger coins of the Second Revolt have been represented all the same size, and it seems that the First Revolt shekel is again the model for the size, since it is shown on the woman to be approximately its actual size.

On the First Revolt shekel in the painting, the chalice is represented precisely enough for us to identify the model as an issue of years 3 to 5 of the revolt (68–70 AD). But the artist did not want to represent the legends in any more than an impressionistic manner, so the Hebrew letters cannot be read. He also omitted altogether the letters used as the year date above the chalice.

The silver appearance of the coins in the painting suggests that Hunt studied actual shekels in order to paint this work, and the most likely place that he would have done this was the British Museum in London. Indeed, the knowledge, which he has brought to the treatment of the coins would suggest that he was in discussion about them with the leading scholars of the day, and very likely the keepers of the Department of Coins and Medals in the British Museum. We can thus possibly use the painting to reconstruct a scene of Hunt at the British Museum, studying the coins under the eye of the keepers, and his artistic mind being interested in portraying the details of the coins, such as the chalice and the silver appearance, but not as closely as the forms of the letters.

How precise was Hunt in using the coins to place the painting in the time of the birth of Christ? One might ask, was it not impossible for coins of the First Revolt, dated 68–70 AD, to have been worn by the Virgin Mary in the turn of the eras? Interestingly, in 1879, this series was dated to the time of the Maccabees, a powerful local dynasty in Palestine in the second century BC, and thus conceivably could have been around, following Victorian knowledge of them, at the time of the birth of Christ. At the time of Hunt, the Hasmonaean series was dated to before the birth of Christ. However, the Second Revolt coins were dated at the time of the painting to the second century AD, and it is impossible that they could have been thought by Victorian numismatic scholars and an educated audience to have been worn by Mary. Hunt is thus only attempting to portray Jewish coins which were issued in the general period of the time of Jesus. He is anachronistic in his inclusion of Second Revolt coins, and this shows that he is not striving for precise historical accuracy.

Between 1876 and 1887, Hunt was working on The Triumph of the Innocents, a large religious painting representing the flight from Egypt of the Holy Family (Mary,

Joseph and Jesus). At the same time, he painted The bride of Bethlehem, which is preparatory to his larger work, in which Mary has a headdress of unidentifiable coins. He also drew Study for a picture from a Bethlehem woman (Study for the Virgin in ‘The Triumph of the Innocents’), which is inscribed on the bottom left “Nijimi. a Bethlehemite” and dated 11 August 1877. In this drawing, he has included a necklace of similar ancient Jewish coins, which I have also identified. Again they are altered in size from the originals, and are anachronistic and archaeologically impossible in being shown as the jewellery of a 19th-century woman in the region.

Such coin headdresses are known from the 19th century in Palestine, and did not, as far as we know, exist in the time of Christ. Known examples have various coins from the region, even quite old ones, such as Greek and Roman coins. No known example has only Jewish coins, and indeed in the region of Palestine these coins are quite scarce compared to the other series. Thus, what Hunt has depicted is an artistic construct, an amalgam of various elements from different historical periods, which he has even chosen to alter in their appearance to suit the artistic context. Indeed, the woman’s red and yellow dress in the painting is characteristic of the region of Bethlehem in the time of Hunt’s visits there, when he was undertaking research for the various paintings. This particular artistic approach is known from many of his works, but this is the first time that he has been shown to have used coins in this manner.

Some of the Jewish coins in the painting are represented in the collection of the Nicholson Museum, and several of these coins are published in an article about the discovery, which appeared in April 2008 in The Burlington Magazine, the London-based international journal for the fine and decorative arts.

In one of the current exhibitions in the Nicholson Museum, Classical Fantasies: the age of beauty, a photograph of the painting The Pottery Workshop by another Victorian artist Lawrence Alma-Tadema, dated 1871, is featured, which includes representations of actual Greek vases (see photograph, page 22). In contrast to Hunt, Alma-Tadema (1836–1912) is famous for his portrayal of predominantly classical rather than biblical scenes. The painting is virtually contemporary with The bride of Bethlehem, and shows the same interest in the representation of actual classical antiquities in paintings in the Victorian period in order to place the scene in their historical context.

Around the time Hunt painted The bride of Bethlehem, scholarly and more widely circulated books appeared which, for the first time, presented a modern scholarly account of ancient Jewish coins. An educated audience was thus aware of what Hunt was doing in his use of such historical details in his works, and a broader audience would have been familiar with the appearance of Middle Eastern women. He, Alma-Tadema and similar artists were thus appealing to the historical and archaeological sensibility of the late 19th century.

Nicholas Hardwick is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA), a member of the Council of the Friends of the Nicholson Museum and the Consulting Editor of World of Antiques and Art.

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In July Dominic Cross became the youngest recipient of the Macleay Miklouho-Maclay Fellowship. His work for the fellowship, which commemorates the collecting interests of the Macleay family and Nikolai N Miklouho-Maclay, is a taxonomic and historical biography of William Sharp Macleay’s 19th century insect collection from Cuba.

William Sharp Macleay was Alexander Macleay’s eldest son, a man of some significance in the history of taxonomy and entomology, and a British civil servant. He spent 10 years in

Cuba (1825–36), first as a junior and then senior British member on the British-Spanish court of commission for the abolition of slavery, living near Havana. Despite international pressure to abolish slavery, Havana was one of the chief ports that received African slaves illegally bound for American and Caribbean plantations (writing in the 1850s Alexander Humboldt estimated there were 123,775 slaves imported to Cuba between 1821 and 1853). While Macleay was obviously busy in Havana with his civil duties, the thousands of insect specimens he collected tell of other preoccupations.

So far Dominic Cross has catalogued in excess of 5500 individual specimens in the Macleay, covering hundreds of family groups. Each insect located within the collection yields exciting information. The real challenge of the research is not so much finding the specimens, which often retain Macleay’s handwritten labels, but classifying them.

Only a tiny fraction have been identified to species level – and with so little written on insects indigenous to Cuba this makes the background research time consuming and difficult but ultimately rewarding.

The Macleay collection is distinguished. It is one of the oldest from Cuba and possibly the only one of its time to be made by a practising entomologist. Dominic’s research will reveal a snapshot of the island’s insect population in the early to mid 19th century and provide information on the ecology and biodiversity of insects in Cuba at that time. These new insights will allow researchers to be better informed about biodiversity in the Caribbean for the purposes of scientific research today.

WS Macleay’s Cuban insects

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Each year during Reconciliation Week the University’s Front Lawn is transformed with an installation created from a ‘Sea of Hands’. Katie Yuill of the University Art Gallery spoke with Adam Ridgeway, the artist responsible for this year’s installation who is currently in his first year of a Master of Visual Arts at Sydney College of the Arts, and Fiona Macdonald, one of the artists who founded this landmark event.

The background

Adam ridgeway (ar): The Sea of Hands is a way to support justice for Indigenous people, particularly the right to practise and celebrate their culture, language, law and to have their land and cultural property respected and protected. It is an active pledge that demonstrates a partnership between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. A person signs up to show their support, then chooses a hand in one of six colours representing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and Australian flags. They then plant this hand in the ground.

fiona Macdonald (fM): The Sea of Hands came out of meetings of art workers that became AAAR! (Australian Artists Against Racism!) in 1997 after Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR) asked us to provide a concept for an artwork that would capture the imagination of the general community.

The idea was for a show of hands for reconciliation that would accompany a petition to parliament. Initially, the hands were to be individual palm prints on card but ANTaR saw it on a huge scale – 250,000 hands – so we used plastic hand cut-outs with the name of an individual who had signed the petition. Adam Ridgeway’s installation this year was really beautiful and uniquely effective in the way its thin curling rows of hands created a feathery kinetic shimmer.

ar: My main idea was based around the original Reconciliation theme of ‘see the person not the stereotype’. My design stems from line drawings I have done about journeys, searching for meaning and location. The drawings curved and carved around each other, but it was the many different individuals with their unique experiences and memories that brought meaning to each drawing.

I am of Worimi descent and after enrolling in ceramics at Sydney College of the Arts I knew I was where I belonged. I have been able to analyse notions of cultural belonging and contemporary understandings of Aboriginality.

The impact

ar: The first Sea of Hands was installed in front of Canberra’s Parliament House in October 1997. Since then it has spread to every major city and many regional locations throughout Australia. The meaning changes from year to year, with local artists strongly encouraged to produce the designs. While the need for support may be the same, the message changes every year, just like the designs, and encourages people to think and act – to be a part of real reconciliation.

fM: It’s been amazing to see how successful this work has been in reaching people all over Australia – from the big capital cities to the small rural and isolated communities. I feel privileged to have been part of it, and am inspired and encouraged that the work continues in such a positive spirit.

Despite the hopes many of us had for Reconciliation, it has not materialised. However, attitudes have shifted by people doing things like the Sea of Hands.

Sea of Hands

The Front Lawn of the University of

Sydney with the ‘Sea of Hands’ created

during Reconciliation Week 2009 (27 May

to 3 June).

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Zuli Wan at the Macleay

The Macleay Museum welcomed Matt Poll as its Assistant Curator, Indigenous Heritage in June. He went straight into action, preparing to mark one of the most important days in the Torres Strait Islander calendar within a month of his arrival.

It was also an opportunity for community members to learn more about how these artefacts are represented nationally and internationally.

The Macleay holds more than 100 artefacts made by Torres Strait Islanders. Principally collected from the people of Erub during WJ Macleay’s Chevert expedition in 1875, the collection includes masks, clothing, personal ornaments, fishing equipment and arrows. The weaving patterns used in the arm ornaments proved to be of particular interest to several of the visitors and provided Macleay staff with ideas for future community projects. There was also discussion about the uses of organic materials such as shell and fibres like pandanus and bamboo, and how these materials have practical uses as well as ornamental application.

People of the Torres Strait have gained an increasing profile in the visual art world in recent years, with Dennis Nona and Ricardo Idagi wining prestigious national art awards in the past year. As interest in the art of the Torres Strait increases, so does interest in the historical and cultural artefacts from the region. The Zuli Wan visit was an exciting starting point for engaging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community representatives in the care, documentation and exhibition of Australia’s Indigenous cultural heritage at the Macleay.

Many thanks to Leah Lui-Chivizhe from the Koori Centre for organising the community visit, and to everyone who came along.

Coming from Boomalli Aboriginal Arts Cooperative to the University has meant quite a few adjustments, such as the shift to work with historic material rather than the contemporary art practice that Boomalli excels in. A good opportunity to work with history came when Leah Lui-Chivizhe, from the University’s Koori Centre, suggested we join forces to commemorate one of the most important days in the Torres Strait Islander calendar – Zuli Wan (July 1). This day, also called ‘coming of the light’, is a recognition of the arrival of the London Missionary Society to Erub (Darnley) Island in 1871, and the establishment of churches and missions across the 18 inhabited islands of the Torres Strait. The day is marked across the Strait and on the mainland (where most Torres Strait Islanders live today), by re-enactments of the missionaries’ arrival, church services and kai-kai (food).

Zuli Wan was commemorated at the Macleay with an open invitation to Sydney’s Torres Strait Islander community to visit the Macleay’s stores and come for tea in the gallery. Many were unaware that the University holds such historically significant objects, and that they are open for community members to enjoy and learn from. The Islanders shared with us their contemporary cultural knowledge about these significant objects. For some of the children who came along, this was their first opportunity to see certain objects from their heritage, including animals with great cultural significance such as gainau or gina, the Ducula bicolor (Torres Strait pigeon) collected at Sue Island in 1874.

Matt Poll Assistant Curator, Indigenous Heritage

Top: Mary Daniel holding a weris (fish scoop) from Erub/Darnley Island c 1870.

Inset: Peter Sabatino and Mary Day. Photos by Leah Lui-Chivizhe.

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With over 60 per cent of its artworks in storage, the University of Sydney Union (USU) Art Collection remains largely unseen by the vast majority of University students and the wider

public. This year’s USU Art Collection interns, Hannah Kothe and Shannon Connellan, are transporting the store room to the gallery space in their upcoming exhibition at the new Verge Gallery – Unwrapped: works from the USU art store. The exhibition reveals treasures from an assortment of works that, beyond being stored together, on the surface appear to have no common thread.

The USU’s Art Collection is one of the largest to be associated with any student organisation internationally and includes a diverse array of paintings, sculpture, photography, mixed media, works on paper and even murals. The collection has grown over the past century through generous donations and prudent acquisitions and now totals nearly 700 works.

One outstanding work that will feature in the exhibition is a bark painting by Philip Gudthaykudthay, a prominent Yolngu artist from Ramingining (born 1935). Gudthaykudthay was the first artist from that community to have a solo show and the last active artist from the early Milingimbi school of painters. The work, Minitji landscape (1985), tells the story of Gunyunmirringa land, the setting for the story of the creation of the Milky Way, through an impressive display of fine raark patterning in silvery white clay and vivid yellow and brown ochre.

Another discovered treasure is the work of Enid Ratnam-Keese, a Malaysian-born Australian artist working in mixed media. Ratnam-Keese employs personal experiences of war, hiding and exile to create multi-layered works that express a sense of empathy for the plight of displaced peoples. This is embodied in her pieces Like imprints in the sand #2 and #4 (2000), created in conjunction with the 2000 Corroboree and People’s Walk for Reconciliation. In these works, motifs of childhood such as a young girl’s dress and tiny calico shoes are presented by the artist through etching, fabric, tissue paper and text, conveying the sense of a mother’s loss of a child during the Stolen Generations.

These two artists from vastly different backgrounds find their works side by side within a crowded art store and from this an unimagined dialogue emerges, drawing on threads of memory and making links to Indigenous history and the processes of reconciliation. Unwrapped: works from the USU art store is an opportunity for previously unseen works such as these to surface, allowing insights into the patchwork nature of the collection and the store in which it is housed.

Unwrapped: works from the USU art store will run from 6 to 30 October at the Verge Gallery in the Union Plaza on City Road.

unwrapping the secrets of the university of Sydney union art collection

Right top: Enid Ratnam-Keese Like imprints in the sand #4 2000 USU2000.25

Right bottom: Enid Ratnam-Keese Like imprints in the sand #2 2000 USU2000.24

Far right: Bill Brown Wine, women and water 2001 USU2002.8

Shannon connellan and Hannah Kothe

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51. Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard meets Public Program Assistant Kate de Beer and Mohammed (our emperor for the day) during the launch of the University of Sydney’s Compass Program on 10 June 2009.2. The internationally renowned feminist art writer Lucy Lippard attracted an enormous crowd for her lecture Three Escape Attempts (jointly sponsored by the Power Institute and the University Art Gallery).

3. Our invaluable interns from Hong Kong for 2009, Ian Chang, Ching Chung Yee and Solomon So. 4. Students from the first National Geographic Society Student expedition to Australia visit the Macleay Museum, along with anthropologist Kirk Huffman and Macleay Senior Curator Dr Jude Philp (Image: Ulla Lohmann, National Geographic).5. University Heritage Policy and Projects Manager Chris Legge-Wilkinson and his wife Robyn at the opening night of Egyptians, Gods and Mummies: Travels with Herodotus.

6. Some of our wonderful Heritage Tour guides: (l to r) Kara Starkey, Kristen Mann, Fran Keeling, Tom Marshall, David Frede, June Harvison, Patricia Biggers, Gary Cook, Gwen Nay, Basil Griffith.7. Sabina Wolanski in the Nicholson Museum on a memorable night following her talk Destined to Live: one woman’s war, life, loves remembered.8. Professor Bruce Thom relating his professional and personal accounts of ‘Griff’ (Griffith Taylor) at the Macleay.

events

events

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THURSDAY 22 OCTOBER, 6.30pMOn gOld digging ants and crOcOdile Farming: HerOdOtus’ etHnOgrapHy in cOntextLecture by Dr Julia Kindt (The University of Sydney)cost: $30, $20 for friends of the Nicholson Museum

TUESDAY 6 TO FRIDAY 9 AND MONDAY 12 TO FRIDAY 16 OCTOBEROctober school holiday activities, 10am to 12 noon, 1 to 3 pmVisit our website for full details of daily children’s activities across the Macleay Museum, Nicholson Museum and University Art Gallery.Bookings: 9351 2812www.usyd.edu.au/museums/whatson/public_events.shtml

SUNDAY 29 NOVEMBER12 noon to 4pmMacleay MuseumyOlngu sOng and danceCome and join us in song and dance in a celebration of Yolngu heritage.free entry

MONDAY 11 TO FRIDAY 15 AND MONDAY 18 TO FRIDAY 22 JANUARY 2010January school holiday activities, 10am to 12 noon, 1 to 3pmVisit our website for full details of daily children’s activities across the Macleay Museum, Nicholson Museum and University Art Gallery.Bookings: 9351 2812www.usyd.edu.au/museums/whatson/public_events.shtml

SUNDAY 14 FEBRUARY 12 noon to 4pmMacleay MuseumcHinese new year – year OF tHe tigerA celebration of the Year of the Tiger, presented in association with the City of Sydney Chinese New Year Festival.free entry

Museums for kids

Free Sunday Egyptian talksOn the first Sunday of every month during 2009 the Nicholson Museum will be presenting a free talk on Egypt by some of the most popular Australian figures in the field as well as some of the new generation of scholars and travellers.

free entry, but bookings essential.

SUNDAY 4 OCTOBER, 2pMakHenaten, neFertiti and tHe amarna revOlutiOnBen Churcher (Astarte Resources)

SUNDAY 1 NOVEMBER, 2pMFatHer OF HistOry, mummy’s bOy: a tribute tO HerOdOtusRonika Power (Macquarie University)

SUNDAY 6 DECEMBER, 2pMmedicine and magic: HealtH and Healing in ancient egyptDr Katherine Eaton (The University of Sydney)

Bookings are essential for all lectures and events at the Nicholson Museum. Please phone: (02) 9351 2812.

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema The Pottery Workshop 1871. © Manchester City Art Gallery

WEDNESDAY 28 OCTOBER, 6.30pMbeirut ya HabibiLecture by Ghada Daher (The University of Sydney)cost: $30, $20 for friends of the Nicholson Museum and members of the australian lebanese foundation

THURSDAY 5 NOVEMBER, 6.30pMFriends OF tHe nicHOlsOn museum partytHe venus de milO: a mytH in tHe makingLecture by Dr Alastair Blanshard (The University of Sydney)cost: $50 per person

THURSDAY 26 NOVEMBER, 6.30pMtHe antikytHera mecHanism: as abOve sO belOwLecture by Professor Robert Hannah (University of Otago)cost: $30, $20 for friends of the Nicholson Museum

THURSDAY 14 JANUARY 2010, 6.30pMancient cHina’s terracOtta armyLecture by Dr Ann Birchall (formerly British Museum)cost: $30, $20 for friends of the Nicholson Museum

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WEDNESDAY 2 DECEMBER, 6pMcuratOr’s talk and musical perFOrmanceDr Joe Gumbula takes us on a musical journey through the exhibition Makarr-garma

WEDNESDAY 9 DECEMBER, 6pMwalu, ngalindi and tHe yOlngu skyscapePublic lecture by Ray Norris (CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility)

entry to these events is free of charge, but please phone (02) 9036 5253 to reserve a place.

LUNCHTIME EXHIBITION TALK SERIES

annemarie grgicH – arcHaeOlOgies OF tHe extraOrdinary everyday

WEDNESDAY 7 OCTOBERProfessor Colin Rhodes (Sydney College of the Arts)

WEDNESDAY 14 AND 21 OCTOBERAnnemarie Grgich

WEDNESDAY 4 NOVEMBERConnie Tornatore Loong (University Art Gallery)

mirrOr><mirrOr

WEDNESDAY 13 JANUARYDr Ann Stephen (University Art Gallery)

All 12 noon in the galleryfree entry

For programs of recitals on the University of Sydney’s historic carillon, see www.usyd.edu.au/carillon

For programs of music on the University Organ in the Great Hall, see www.usyd.edu.au/organ

Music at the University of Sydney

Heritage tours and education programs

WEDNESDAY 7 OCTOBER, 6pMgriFF taylOr, edgewOrtH david and OtHer australians in antarcticaHonorary Associate Dr David Branagan (School of Geosciences)

THe grIffITH TaylOr SerIeS Presented in association with the School of Geosciences

Richard Hamilton, Palindrome 1974

See www.usyd.edu.au/museums/whatson/edu_progs_tours.shtml to find out more about our tours.

Keep up to date with events and news from the Nicholson Museum, Macleay Museum and University Art Gallery – join our Facebook groups and follow us on Twitter.

SYDNEY UNIVERSITY MUSEUMSComprising the Macleay Museum, Nicholson Museum and University Art GalleryOpen Monday to Friday, 10am to 4.30pm, Sunday 12 noon to 4pm

Closed on public holidays. General admission free.

Website: www.usyd.edu.au/museums

Join our Facebook groups and follow us on Twitter!

Sydney University Museums will be closed for the Christmas period between 19 December 2009 and Monday 4 January 2010.

MACLEAY MUSEUM

Macleay Building, Gosper Lane (off Science Road)Phone: (02) 9036 5253

Fax: (02) 9351 5646

Email: macleaymuseum@usyd.edu.au

On show at the Macleay MuseumGriffith Taylor: Global Geographer until 8 November 2009

Makarr-garma: Aboriginal collections from a Yolngu perspective 29 November 2009 to May 2010

WS Macleay and the Natural History Circle Until December 2009

Outlines – Koori artefacts from the Macleay Museum 26 October 2009 to 30 June 2010

Macleay Reworked Ongoing exhibition

NICHOLSON MUSEUM

In the southern entrance to the QuadranglePhone: (02) 9351 2812

Fax: (02) 9351 7305

Email: nicholsonmuseum@usyd.edu.au

On show at the Nicholson MuseumEgyptians, Gods and Mummies: travels with Herodotus

Ongoing exhibition

Nicholson: Man and Museum

Ongoing exhibition

The Sky’s the Limit: astronomy in antiquity Until June 2010

Classical Fantasies: the age of beauty Ongoing exhibition

UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY

War Memorial Arch, QuadranglePhone: (02) 9351 6883

Fax: (02) 9351 7785

Email: artcollection@usyd.edu.au

On show at the University Art GalleryAnnemarie Grgich – archaeologies of the extraordinary everyday 4 October to 13 December 2009

Mirror<>Mirror – Then 4 January to 2 May 2010

Mirror<>Mirror – & Now (In collaboration with Tin Sheds Gallery and Verge Gallery) 25 March to 2 May 2010

Below: Volunteers Eliza Murray, Miriam Craig and Ella Sommers prepare for the opening of the current University Art Gallery Exhibition Collecting passions: a century of modernism from the collection of Justice Roddy Meagher

Sydney University Museums Newsletter Edited by Michael Turner Designed and edited by Digital and Print Media The University of Sydney, September 2009 Printed by SOS Print and Media Group CRICOS Provider No. 00026A ISSN 1449-0420

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Our glorious volunteersThe next time you get a cheery hello as you go into the Art Gallery, Macleay or Nicholson, or are offered a drink or something to eat at a function or exhibition opening, spare a thought and a kind word for one of our wonderful volunteers. Behind the scenes there are yet more – researchers, conservators and heritage tour guides, all giving their time for free.

As with many museums and galleries around the world, we would not be able to do half of what we do if it were not for our volunteers. The arrangement is in turn wonderfully and mutually beneficial. Most, but not all, of our volunteers are from the student body of the University, from first years to postgrads. Students realise that much of the knowledge and skills they learn while volunteering will not only help with their academic work – be it archaeology, biology, fine arts or museum studies – but will also look good on their CV. From the social side to the chance to become involved in museum projects, from scanning to data entry, from research to the opportunity to go on to paid employment in the Museums Schools Education Program, there is a lot we can offer.