What changes? What makes an artist?

Diana Tay

The necessary brass plate for artists in 1949
Figure 1: The necessary brass plate for artists in 1949. Daub, 1949. Lucy Kerley collection, 2007.0060.00152

For a conservator, troubles begin, as troubles often do, in a collection, a museum or perhaps, in an archive. Materials change, degrade and then, comes the worry that we’ll lose a piece of history or a moment in time. However, the powers of digitisation have made many collections accessible today in what appears to be a visual freezing of time. In fact, as in fiction, this desire has continued for as long as collections continue to grow – our desire to have and to hold for as long as possible[i]. As an unsuspecting conservator browsing thorough DAUB (1949)[ii], a student art magazine by the National Gallery Art School, I found that it set off these reflections on time and artists. The materiality of time was evident in the thirty yellowed pages of drawings and articles printed in monochrome blue ink. Working with contemporary artists as part of my profession but recalling the saying that reading a book is like looking into someone’s mind, I found myself exploring how these student writings, particularly the more humourous or ironic notes and cartoons in the magazine, resonate nearly seventy years later. Continue reading “What changes? What makes an artist?” →

The Frank Tate Diaries

Sophie Russell

Frank Tate Letters, 1932-33

Frank Tate, born 18 June 1864 near Castlemaine, Victoria, was one of Australia’s most esteemed educators of the 19th and 20th centuries. After discovering a talent for teaching as a pupil-teacher at the Old Model School on Spring Street in Melbourne in 1877, Tate began a hugely successful career in teaching that led to his appointment as the first Director of Education in 1902. Frank Tate was critical of the education system that he inherited, a system that included a narrow curriculum, low teacher training, low teacher salaries and the ‘payment by results’ system of remuneration. As a founding member of the State School Teachers Union of Victoria, Department of Education inspector, a key contributor to the Theodore Fink Royal Commission into technical education, and as Director of Education Tate lobbied for the introduction of ‘new education’ and reform in Victorian schools. Tate’s educational reforms introduced a more liberal and creative approach to education, with the inclusion of literature and poetry into a curriculum that had previously been defined by wrote-learning and strict discipline. Tate was vocal about the under-resourced and under-funded plight of rural Victorian schools, and believed that all Victorian children should have equal access to a well-funded and well-taught public education. Tate has been recognised by colleagues and students as a man of wit and charm, who frequently quoted Shakespeare, and who fostered a sense of dignity among the undervalued teachers of Victoria.  Continue reading “The Frank Tate Diaries” →

The Rare Books Collection: How did it all start?

Prior to 1959, the university library’s Rare Books Collection was relatively small. The first significant contribution to the collection was the George McArthur bequest, which was made in 1903. George McArthur (1842-1903) donated “the whole of his books” to the University of Melbourne, which involved some 2,500 volumes. [1.] These books covered topics such as Australian exploration, mining history, typography, and early printing. The bequest made up around ten percent of the library’s rare cultural materials at the time, and led the way forward to allow for the collection to develop.

Rare Book Room
Shelves of the Rare Book Room

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The Gerson incunabulum

The University of Melbourne’s Rare Book Collection holds around 30 incunabula, or early printed books and these are all digitised. ‘Incunabula’ is a term given to books produced in the cradle days of book printing, generally pre-1500, and they are distinct from manuscripts, which are hand-written. One of the University’s incunabula was published in 1489 and was authored by Jean (Johannes) Charlier de Gerson (1363-1429), a French scholar devoted to the study of the Catholic Church, who published extensively throughout his life. The title Opera means ‘Work’, and the book appears to be one of three volumes comprising a treatise on the Catholic Church. This first volume is subtitled Prima pars operii Johannes Gerson, meaning ‘The first part of the works of Johannes Gerson’.

Gerson sample page
Sample page from Jean Gerson, ‘Opera’, Nuremburg: Georg Stuchs, 1489, Rare Books Collection

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