From the editorial chair.
Barnes, John
SINCE the Cowen Gallery was opened in November 2003, visitors who
would not otherwise have entered the building have come 'to see the
pictures'. Many of the paintings now exhibited in the new gallery
had previously been stored because there was so little space in which to
put them on public display. The permanent exhibition in the Cowen
Gallery, consisting of portraits and places of interest to Victorians,
ranges from the early colonial to the contemporary. In collecting
paintings and other works of art as well as books and manuscripts, the
State Library fulfils an important role in preserving the cultural
memory of the community. Our aim in this number of The La Trobe Journal
is to give readers an introduction to that aspect of the Library, and a
sampling of the research on the Library holdings that has been done by
scholars, both inside and outside the institution.
It is possible to reproduce here only a few of the more interesting
paintings now on exhibition, but perhaps that will be enough to give
readers who have not yet been to the Gallery some idea of what to
expect. Shane Carmody, Director of Collections and Access, gives a brief
account of the collection and the exhibition space, and Virginia
Dahlenburg, Senior Paintings Conservator, gives a view from the
workroom. Kathleen Fennessy does not discuss the Cowen Gallery, but her
research into the early history of the institution puts the present
picture gallery in historical perspective. (Readers who are fortunate
enough to have a copy of The La Trobe Journal No. 73--the Redmond Barry Number--may find it rewarding to read her article alongside the material
found there on Barry's role at the Library.)
On the way to the Redmond Barry Reading Room visitors pass through
the Cowen Gallery, with Louis Buvelot's Terrinallum Homestead on
the left and William Strutt's Black Thursday on the right. Even the
most pedantic scholars, with their minds full of the pleasures of
deciphering obscure manuscripts and poring over arcane literature, can
hardly fail to notice these two outstanding paintings, both of which are
discussed by contributors to this issue. Picture Librarian Madeleine Say
outlines the extraordinary history of Strutt's painting between the
date of its creation in 1864 and its present home, thus providing an
insight into the vagaries of taste and public policy. Anne Colman,
probably the first Australian writer on Buvelot to look at his paintings
in Brazil, presents a new perspective on the influential painter often
referred to as 'the Father of Australian Landscape Painting'.
In a second article Madeleine Say offers a fascinating insight into
history painting, a genre well represented in the Library collection.
She focuses on Henry Short's Robert Hoddle Dec. 1845 Hear the
Source of the Yarra Yarra River Starvation Creek, a painting produced 15
years after the event that it memorialises, and examines how
Hoddle's sketches were used by early painters as the basis for
their own compositions. Foundation members will be aware that the
Foundation provided funds for the purchase of Short's painting in
2002, and more recently for some watercolours by Hoddle.
A different sort of detective work is undertaken by Anne Neale, who
has been researching the work of Edward La Trobe Bateman. His pencil
sketches of La Trobe's cottage (La Trobe was his cousin) are of
particular interest; but Dr Neale's concern here is a little sketch
of a stockman's hut that, for tile better part of a century, has
been wrongly identified as the hut of John McLure, the tutor of George
Gordon McCrae, at Arthur's Seat. This article is a demonstration of
the careful sifting of facts and the logical thinking that lies behind
the judgements of professional historians. One may fairly claim that
these characteristics are to be found in the research work presented in
this issue of The La Trobe Journal.
Scrupulous and painstaking research is necessary when documentation
is scarce or non-existent. In the absence of Alexander Fletcher's
business records, Caroline Jordan can only speculate on what caused the
disappearance of his business, but from a wide range of sources she has
been able to build up an authoritative account of" his business
dealings when 'Fletcher's of Collins Street' was a phrase
familiar to the residents of Marvellous Melbourne.
Caroline Jordan's task would have been easier if the Melbourne
Public Library in the 1890s had been interested in buying an art
dealer's records. How attitudes have changed since then is
underlined by the fact that in 2001 the State Library bought the
business records and trading stock of a political poster workshop that
had operated in Melbourne from the late 1970s. Olga Tsara is able to
trace in considerable detail the history of the RedPlanet, and document
the factors that had brought the enterprise to an end by December 1999.
It is pleasing to note that Olga Tsara's article is based on
research she did in 2003 as an inaugural Staff Fellow at the State
Library.
Our intention was to include photography in this number of the
Journal, but so much material has been submitted that several articles
on that topic have been held over to appear in No. 76. It is perhaps
appropriate here to say that we welcome articles on all sorts of topics
that relate in some way to the Library, and no-one should be discouraged
from submitting an article by our announcing a specific focus for a
future issue.
Acknowledgements
The State Library of Victoria Foundation gratefully acknowledges
the courtesy of the Library Council of New South Wales and the Museu
Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro, in granting permission to
reproduce in this number of The La Trobe Journal colour images of
paintings held in their collections
