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.
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UTOPIA - the Amazing Australian Paraguayan Story
Directed by Denny Lawrence (The Bill/A Country Practice)
In the 1890s, with an economic depression and widespread unemployment, a group of Australians set out for Paraguay, in South America, to establish a Socialist society. Their leader was the charismatic writer and orator Billy Lane, and colonists included Dave Stevenson, the cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson, and Mary Cameron, who later became Dame Mary Gilmore – commemorated today on the ten-dollar note.
UTOPIA is a new musical celebrating this little-known noble experiment. The songs range in style from Australian bush ballads to romantic melodies to fiery Spanish dance tunes. This 60 minute performance is not to be missed!
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Macquarie University/The Lighthouse
Australia’s wartime leader John Curtin declared from his first days in office that everyone should read poetry, writes Macquarie University poetry scholar and Curtin’s great-grandson, Dr Toby Davidson, author of a new book about the PM’s passion for verse.
When he first became Prime Minister in October 1941, John Curtin informed the press that he held to a Sunday night poetry reading ritual and he declared that “every man should read poetry for the good of his soul”.
Well versed: As Prime Minister, John Curtin’s wartime speeches quoted Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron and others.
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Hazel de Berg (1913–1984) was a woman of immense talent who, from 1957 onwards, created the National Library of Australia’s first oral history collection. Over 27 years, she recorded the voices of 1,290 Australians born between 1865 and 1953, including artists, writers, composers, scientists and many others. In December 2020, her legacy reaches a whole new audience as part of an innovative collaboration between the National Library and the National Portrait Gallery. Extracts from her recordings bring to life a wide range of portraits, matching visual and audio elements to create an immersive and moving experience. Visitors to the Portrait Gallery (and people across the world who download the specially designed app) will be able to hear extraordinary Australians in their own words (a great many of whom have passed away), thanks to Hazel de Berg’s efforts recording them decades prior.
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