In 2008, when I first visited Canberra’s newly opened National Portrait Gallery, my first response was an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. I knew many of those paintings. They had once hung on the walls of the Art Gallery of New South Wales as part of the annual Archibald Prize exhibition, or been seen in the Salon des Refusés home to the best of the rejects.
Over 49 years I have seen the Archibald from both the inside, as a curator, and the outside as a critic. My first Archibald was in 1972, the year Clifton Pugh won with his portrait of Gough Whitlam. Along with other art history students, I had never been especially interested in this festival of popular culture, but as the recently appointed most junior of all curators my job was to administer the prize.
There was so much happening for readers of
The Sydney Morning Herald one Monday in March 1932. There were new statistics on UK imports, Phar Lap was looking fit ahead of the Agua Caliente and Bert Hinkler was planning a flight across the North Atlantic.
But there was one event that had captivated the city over the weekend.
“The Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened in glorious weather and with pageantry that has never been surpassed in Australia,” the
Herald reported. “The police estimate that more than 750,000 people watched the procession - the largest crowd ever assembled in Sydney.”
Captain Francis De Groot after cutting the ribbon at the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932
From the Archives, 1972: Whitlam protests to US on North Vietnam bombing
From the Archives, 1972: Whitlam protests to US on North Vietnam bombing
The newly elected Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, wrote to the US President, Richard Nixon, strongly complaining about the renewed US bombing campaign against North Vietnam.
By Staff reporter
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Whitlam protests to US on bombing
CANBERRA, Thursday. The Prime Minister, Mr Whitlam, has written to President Nixon protesting against the renewed American bombing of North Vietnam.
Mr Whitlam s office would not comment tonight on reports from senior departmental sources that Mr Whitlam s letter strongly opposed the American action.