Lecture #5 - Australian timbers: a history of their use in cabinetmaking - Part of 3rd Narratives of Nations Symposium 2022
Speaker: John McPhee
Title: Australian timbers: a history of their use in cabinetmaking
Abstract: With special reference to examples in the Australiana Fund collection, this talk will look at the discovery, use of, and fashion for Australian timbers in cabinetmaking.
Speaker: John McPhee
John McPhee, the inaugural Director of Fine Arts for the Australiana Fund and Fine Art Advisor to the Committee on Official Establishments, 1978-1979, and the inaugural Curator of Australian Decorative Arts and Senior Curator of Australian art, at the National Gallery of Australia, 1980-1992.
Joseph Sly, England/Australia, 1803– 1887, arrived 1834,
Pair of bookcases,
Sydney, New South Wales, c.1845,
red cedar, glass, each 122.5 x 294.5 x 47 cm.
Purchased 1979. 1979.15.1–2
©Wendy McDougall Photography
Lecture #4 - The Emergence of the Australian Interior Designer: Craft, Commerce and Interdisciplinary Practices, 1920-1945 - Part of 3rd Narratives of Nations Symposium 2022
Speaker: Dr Catriona Quinn, Researcher and academic, UNSW Sydney.
Title: The Emergence of the Australian Interior Designer: Craft, Commerce and Interdisciplinary Practices, 1920-1945
Abstract: The 1920s and 1930s were a crucial time for the development of new design occupations, including interior decoration, which offered fresh opportunities in commerce and self-expression for women. The links between craft and design were crucial to this transitional phase of emergent occupations, when interdisciplinary practices flourished. This talk looks at individual designers such as Thea Proctor, Marion Hall Best, Margo Lewers and May Coulson through the lense of key themes: the gendering of craft and design practices, the global circulation of ideas and the implications of European diaspora. The fluidity between interwar craft and design practices, it is argued, connects this seminal era with contemporary tensions in design disciplines and the gendering of ‘female’ occupations which underpins biased historical narratives.
Speaker: Dr Catriona Quinn, Researcher and academic, UNSW Sydney.
Dr Catriona Quinn researches and teaches design history at UNSW Sydney. A former curator at Sydney Living Museums, she developed the first retrospective exhibition on an Australian interior designer, Marion Hall Best, in 1993. Catriona has published and lectured widely on interior design history, including recent chapters in The Other Moderns: Sydney’s Forgotten European Design Legacy (2017) and Margo Lewers: No Limits (2022) and was twice awarded bursaries by the Design History Society to present at their international conferences. Her 2021 PhD on the role of the client in postwar interior design won UNSW’s J.M. Freeland Prize for Significant Research Contribution. 3.
Lecture #3 - W. H. Rocke & Co., and the crafting of taste and tradition with Australian timbers in Melbourne and Canberra - Part of 3rd Narratives of Nations Symposium 2022
Speaker: Dr Andrew Montana
Title: From international exhibitions to Ruth Lane-Poole’s Federal Capital commission: W. H. Rocke & Co., and the crafting of taste and tradition with Australian timbers in Melbourne and Canberra.
Abstract: Established in Melbourne in the 1860s, W. H. Rocke & Co. was Victoria’s successful and largest furniture manufacturer and crafted stylish and impressive furniture to showcase Australian timbers for international exhibitions in Australia and London. This quality firm worked until the early 1930s and was responsible for some of the cabinetry and upholstery work of Canberra’s Official Residences under the direction of Ruth Lane-Poole. Casting the context wider, this well-illustrated presentation showcases Rocke & Co.’s work, and the interest in the revival of historic, British styles in Australian timbers, long championed by Lane-Poole and her associates from Melbourne.
Speaker: Dr Andrew Montana
An Honorary Research Fellow, Dr Andrew Montana was a senior lecturer in art and design for almost twenty years at the Australian National University. In 2013, he was the curator of the exhibition Australia Revealed: Decorative Arts from The Australiana Fund. The author of books, chapters and articles, he engages with the intersection of art, architecture, design and the decorative arts in his ongoing research. Most recently, Andrew has contributed two chapters on the Australian decorators Lyon, Cottier & Co. to the book Daniel Cottier: Designer, Decorator, Dealer, published with Yale through the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, 2021. He was awarded the Ivan Barko award for his published research in the French Australian Review.
Lecture #2 - Ruth Lane-Poole - A Woman of Influence - Part of 3rd Narratives of Nations Symposium 2022
Speaker: Margaret Betteridge
Title: Ruth Lane Poole - A Woman of Influence
Margaret was introduced to the work of Ruth Lane-Poole in 1986 on taking up her role as Honorary Adviser, Fine Arts and Gifts in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. She came to appreciate Ruth's work in the historical context of decorating and furnishing Government House and The Lodge in 1927. In 2021 Margaret curated the exhibition, Ruth Lane-Poole: A Woman of Influence, at Canberra Museum and Gallery which brought together insights into her Irish family connections and her decorating philosophy. For the first time, examples of the furniture, silver and china she commissioned for the official residences in 1926-27 were seen together in the context of her work.
With the Governor-General and the Prime Minister successfully installed in their official residences in Canberra in time for the opening of Federal Parliament on 9 May 1927, the Federal Capital Commission’s ‘Furniture Specialist’, Ruth Lane-Poole, could reflect on the task she had just completed. With great pride, she noted that ‘there is not one piece in the houses made of imported timber.’ No doubt encouraged by her husband, Charles Lane-Poole, the Commonwealth’s senior forester, she chose Australian native timbers to suit the traditional period styles of furniture she considered appropriate for the functional requirements of the houses and their occupants.
Speaker: Margaret Betteridge, Director Betteridge Heritage, freelance heritage and decorative arts consultant
A post-graduate scholar in museum studies at the University of Leicester, Margaret was the founding curator of the Royal Mint and Hyde Park Barracks Museums for Sydney's Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. In 1986 she was appointed to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to manage the collections of contents in the Australian Government's official residences. Since 1994, Margaret has enjoyed the diversity of collections management and curatorial enterprise projects with clients in the public domain working on wide ranging projects across Australia and New Zealand. She has the privilege of on-going work with all tiers of government and with private and public organisations to deliver award-winning results. Her clients include (but not limited to) the NSW Government (Public Works Advisory, Property and Development NSW and Heritage NSW), City of Sydney and Sydney Living Museums. She is passionate about the use of Australian flora and its adaptation as a decorative language in design, art and craft.
Lecture #1 - The Governor-General’s Xylotheque - Part of 2022 3rd Narratives of Nations Symposium
Bookings: Eventbrite
Speaker: Jennifer Sanders, Chair The Australiana Fund
Title: The Governor-General’s Xylotheque
In 1918, Richard Baker, Curator/Director of the Technological Museum, Sydney, presented His Excellency Sir Ronald Crauford Munro Ferguson P.C. G.C. M.C., Governor-General of Australia with a collection of 100 ‘dummy’ books each carved out of an Australian timber with the botanical name on the spine of the timber sample. Carved by renowned timber carver, Frederick W. Tod, each volume represents not only the refined cabinetmaking skills of Tod but also the richness and potential of Australia’s native forests.
More than a gift, this timber ‘library’ or xylotheque was the embodiment of the deep respect Baker had for Munro Ferguson, who was himself a forester. The respect was mutual – Baker, an Economic Botanist was a leading figure in a distinguished group of botanists who researched and classified the botanical resources of the new southern land of Australia, following in the footsteps of Sir Joseph Banks.
This paper throws new light on the influence and connections of Munro Ferguson, Governor-General throughout World War 1and, an advocate for a sustainable Australian timber industry.