Inside the Collection

Solar Heater in the form of a dish by Lawence Hargrave

A hot topic: Solar Thermal Power

December 30, 2011

Debbie Rudder
This post is part of an ongoing series of energy storage posts by intern Brett Szmajda. When I say ‘solar power’, most people conjure up images of the thin, iridescent blue panels that make a patchwork quilt out of the roofs of suburban houses.
Violin lying on its side made by Harry Vatiliotis

The Violin Twins 10th Anniversary

December 28, 2011

Michael Lee
A bit of background…As the new millennium was about to begin composer and violinist Romano Crivici and I came up with a crazy idea – could we get two almost identical violins and test them against each other to see if their respective sounds changed over time?
Collection items stored in compactus

Red, white and green- a festive look at the fashion collection

December 25, 2011

Rebecca Evans
Many fashion blogs and sites at the moment are focusing on what to wear for Christmas. This year, women's fashions include dresses heavily embellished with sequins, lace and shiny fabrics. Interesting when I am sure, most Australians will just end up in T-shirts playing some sort of sport in the backyard.
Christmas card, Chips and Quentin Rafferty, 1947

Collings Collection; Chips Rafferty Christmas Card

December 24, 2011

Geoff Barker
Dahl and Geoffrey Collings began their documentary film making careers in the late 1930s but in the 1940s they were associated with two Australian feature films, ‘The Overlanders’ (1946) and ‘Eureka Stockade’ (1949), which were directed by Harry Watt for Britain’s Ealing Studios.
Collection items stored in compactus

Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, Pelz Nicol and Father Christmas

December 23, 2011

Anni Turnbull
Although many countries call Father Christmas by other names the tradition of making Christmas decorations have familiar characters and colours, often rotund male figures with long white beards dressed in red and white.
Close up of Collage Whipbird Christmas card

Hand-made Christmas cards

December 21, 2011

Anne-Marie Van de Ven
Every year, around this time of the year, an envelope arrives on my desk which brings with it, pleasure and delight. This year, in response to the emerging community interest in the ‘hand-made’ (demonstrated in part by the enthusiastic response we’ve received to the Museum’s international Love Lace competition and exhibition), I thought I’d share some of this joy and delight with readers of the Museum’s ‘Inside the Collection’ blog.
Christmas card featuring portrait photographs of the Collings family, designed by Dahl and Geoffrey Collings

The Collings Christmas Card Collection

December 19, 2011

Geoff Barker
With the holiday season fast approaching we thought it was an opportune time to highlight one of the collections being catalogued by archives staff this year, 2007/30/1 the archives of Dahl and Geoffrey Collings, part of which has a strong Christmas/New Year theme.
Atomic absorption spectrophotometer

Flash of insight led to brilliant Australian invention

December 16, 2011

Debbie Rudder
Dr Alan Walsh had an ‘aha’ moment while gardening in 1954. Straight away, he phoned a friend and said: We’ve been measuring the wrong bloody thing! A CSIRO chemist, he wasn’t referring to delphiniums (blue) or geraniums (red).
H8504-22 Unidentified male, from photographic negative, collodion / glass, Freeman Bothers Studio, Sydney, 1871 - 1880

Freeman Brothers Studio – Large Format Photographs

December 14, 2011

Geoff Barker
Unidentified man, from collodion negative, Freeman Brothers Studio, 1871-1880,Powerhouse Museum, H8504-22 Over the last couple of months I have been working on a previously uncatalogued collection of large format, 50.8 cm x 44.5 cm, glass plate negatives donated to the Powerhouse Museum in 1969.
Detail of cast of M*A*S*H from toy packaging, 1978

R.I.P. Colonel Sherman T Potter (actor Harry Morgan) 1915-2011

December 10, 2011

Rebecca Bower
Like most Australians in the 1970s, my family were addicted to MASH, the witty and acerbic television show about life in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War. Every night at 7pm we would eat our dinner in front of the telly watching the antics of Hawkeye, Klinger, Hot Lips Houlihan, Frank Burns, Radar and others at the 4077th.
Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Photo G. Barker, 2011

Wireless and Handheld Devices at the Museum of Old and New Art

December 9, 2011

Geoff Barker
The alarm was set for 5:00am but the rain outside, and five hours sleep, did little to renew the enthusiasm so confidently expressed when Nick’s initially suggested we fly to Tasmania for the day to visit the Museum of Old and New Art ‘MONA’ in Hobart.
Australian-made sledge used on the 1911-14 Mawson Expedition

Centenary of Mawson’s 1911 Antarctic Expedition – Part 2 – The riddle of the sledges

December 7, 2011

Margaret Simpson
What do Douglas Mawson, aviation pioneer Lawrence Hargrave, a Sydney car body builder and the Klondike gold rush have in common? They are all part of the riddle of the Museum’s sledges. In my last post I wrote about the Norwegian sledge in the Museum’s collection used on Mawson’s 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition.