Inside the Collection

Poster, 'Wirth Brothers Grand Circus and New York Equescurriculum', printed in Melbourne, late 1880s. Gift of the Wirth family, 2012.

Wirth’s Circus in the Pacific

April 30, 2015

Peter Cox
This series of posts on Australia’s own Wirth’s Circus finishes up today with only a few days left to see our exhibition, Circus Factory. Previous posts have looked at when the Wirth's circus hit the road, how we are exhibiting the Wirth's Circus collection, the family's musical beginnings, the diary of John James Wirth and how the Wirth brothers transformed from band to circus. Photographs and documents in the Museum’s collection reveal the rapid growth of Wirth’s Circus as well as a series of disasters and triumphs they encountered on their first overseas tours.
Photo of Japanese ceramic bowls presented to the New South Wales Collection of Applied Art by Charles F. Laseron in 1927. Japan, 17th Century, MAAS collection

The Many Sides of Charles Laseron, Part III

April 24, 2015

Powerhouse
Charles Laseron was an early collector at MAAS and formative influence upon our applied arts collection. He was also present during the Gallipoli landings in 1915. In the week leading up to the ANZAC Centenary, we are publishing a series of posts detailing Laseron’s life.
Charles Laseron catches an early penguin arrival in Spring, photograph by Archibald Lang Mclean, Cape Denison (Antarctica), 1911-14, State Library NSW collection

The Many Sides of Charles Laseron, Part II

April 22, 2015

Powerhouse
Charles Laseron was an early collector at MAAS and formative influence upon our applied arts collection. He was also present during the Gallipoli landings in 1915. In the week leading up to the ANZAC Centenary, we are publishing a series of posts detailing Laseron’s life.
Photograph of Charles Laseron among staff at the Technological Museum, Sydney, 1919, MAAS Collection

The Many Sides of Charles Laseron, Part I

April 20, 2015

Powerhouse
Charles Laseron was an early collector at MAAS and formative influence upon our applied arts collection. He was also present during the Gallipoli landings in 1915. In the week leading up to the ANZAC Centenary, we are publishing a series of posts detailing Laseron’s life.
Solider Portrait of Robert Millikin, photographer unknown, 1914 - 18, MAAS Collection (the Tyrell Collection)

Commemorating 100 Years of ANZAC at Castle Hill

April 15, 2015

Tilly Boleyn
On Saturday, 25 April this year, Australia marks 100 years since the landing at Gallipoli during World War I. As part of proceedings to mark this significant anniversary, MAAS has collaborated with Castle Hill RSL Club on a special exhibition for their members and guests.
Photograph of the Wirth family

Wirth’s Circus hits the road

April 8, 2015

Peter Cox
The Circus Factory exhibition includes costumes, photographs and documents from the Museum's Wirth's Circus collection. The Wirth name has a special place in Australian circus folklore. Billed as Australia's own 'Greatest Show on Earth', Wirth's Circus toured from 1880 until its demise in 1963.
Award winning mouse slippers’ label from the Powerhouse exhibition "The Oopsatoreum" by Shaun Tan

Mouse slippers’ label receives international honour

April 1, 2015

Tilly Boleyn
‘Mouse slippers’, a label from the Powerhouse exhibition The Oopsatoreum, is one of 10 labels honoured in this year’s annual Excellence in Exhibition Label Writing Competition, an international award sponsored by the American Alliance of Museums in partnership with the Museology Graduate Program at the University of Washington, Seattle.
A page from an AEG catalogue showing variations on a theme – consumers were able to customise their kettle purchase by choosing from three shapes, sizes and finishes. (from T. Buddensieg, ed., Industrie-kultur, courtesy Gebr, Mann Verlag, Berlin.)

Form Without Ornament: A New Industrial Design Process

March 25, 2015

Tilly Boleyn
Our Interface exhibition unpacks some strategies employed by designers to simplify the way we use information technology (IT) tools. But surprisingly, the earliest objects in the exhibition are not IT artefacts at all but come from our decorative arts collection.
Locomotive 3642 steaming out of Gordon station on 8 March 2015. Photo by Phillip Simpson.

Steam locomotive 3642 celebrates 125 years of Sydney’s North Shore railway

March 10, 2015

Margaret Simpson
Last Sunday, 8 March 2015, the leafy tranquility of Sydney's Upper North Shore was pierced regularly throughout the day by a shrill steam whistle. Steam had returned to this commuter line to the city with the historic steam locomotive 3642 providing steam train rides between Hornsby and Gordon stations to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the opening of the line.
Photo of ‘Colourblock’ Coffee table, wood / glass, John Smith, Tasmania, Australia, 1984

Obituary: John Smith, August 1948 – 24 February 2015

March 4, 2015

Tilly Boleyn
This post was written by Grace Cochrane AM, independent curator and writer, Sydney; former senior curator of Australian decorative arts and design, MAAS, Powerhouse Museum. It is very sad to hear of the death on 24 February 2015, of John Smith, a key figure in furniture designing and making in Australia for over 40 years.
Photograph of the adventurers at the conclusion of their trek, 2012, photo supplied by James Castrission and Justin Jones

Surviving in Antarctica – Cas and Jonesy’ contemporary equipment

March 4, 2015

Margaret Simpson
"… all kinds of schemes were in progress for adapting our sledging-gear and instruments to the severe conditions. Nobody was idle during the day, for, when there was nothing else to be done; there always remained the manufacture and alteration of garments and crampons."