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22 August – 16 November 2003
National Portrait Gallery at Old Parliament House
| Conamdatta, a North(ern) Queensland Aboriginal
man 1897
by James White (1862-1918)
plaster bust 90 x 55.2 x 30 cm
Art Gallery of New South Wales. Gift of Antonio Dattilo Rubbo 1924
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This exhibition focuses on exploring national and communal
identity through sculptural production in Australia, from the early decades
of settlement through to the present day. The scope of the exhibition
is wide and reflects two aims. Firstly to particularise certain specific
moments in Australian history, including the shaping of Aboriginal-white
contact in the 19th century and the construction of national identity
through the mythologies of the bushman and the ANZAC. And secondly to
focus on sculpture’s historical association with the service of
death, especially through its emphasis on the function of commemoration.
DIrector's Message
| Sir Alfred Stephen 1898 (detail)
by Allen Hutchinson (wking 1880s-90s)
marble bust 68.8 x 47.5 x 28 cm
Art Gallery of New South Wales. Commissioned by the Trustees 1898.
Purchased 1899
A posthumous bust of the NSW Chief Justice and legislator (1802-94),
founding trustee of the National Gallery of NSW, and a pinnacle
of mid-nineteenth century Sydney society, depicted pragmatically
as an old man.
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Lady Diana Duff Cooper c.1909-1919
by Bertram Mackennal (1863-1931)
bronze head 40.6 x 28.8 x 24 cm
Art Gallery of New South Wales. Bequest of Albert and Katey Nathan
1941
marble and plaster versions exist of the work
London socialite and one of the most famous beauties of her time,
Diana Manners married Alfred Duff Cooper in 1919.
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| A young Australian 1930
by Daphne Mayo (1895-1982)
bronze bust 43 x 35.2 x 18 cm
Art Gallery of New South Wales. Purchased 1930
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| Tom Roberts 1910
by Francis Derwent Wood (British) (1871-1926)
patinated plaster head 55.9 x 34 x 26 cm
Art Gallery of New South Wales. Gift of Tom Roberts 1929
A portrait of Roberts who became a close associate with Wood and
his Australian wife, the singer Florence Schmidt, in London.
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Image at top left of screen
Decorative portrait – Len Lye c.1925
by Rayner Hoff (1894-1937)
marble head 30.5 x 22.5 x 16.5 cm
Art Gallery of New South Wales. Purchased 1938
Lye (1901-1981), a New Zealander later highly regarded for his experimental
films and kinetic sculptures, lived temporarily in Sydney over 1923-5
before moving to London and New York.
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