Inside the Collection

Design

Collection items stored in compactus

Happy Birthday Wedgwood!

July 14, 2009

Eva Czernis-Ryl
Did you know that Josiah Wedgwood was born on 12th of July 1730? It was his birthday on Sunday so we thought that this would be a good opportunity to illustrate our fabulous ‘Venus in her chariot’ vase, a highlight of our significant Wedgwood collection.
Cross section from architectural drawing of the Imperial Bank Mint in St Petersburg

Matthew Boulton and the Imperial Bank Mint in St Petersburg

June 3, 2009

Debbie Rudder
At first glance, this drawing shows an old building holding a steam engine and other machinery. Then the eye focuses on the figures, men in formal eighteenth century Russian dress; perhaps they are there to provide scale, or to suggest that this is an important building holding important machinery.
Photography by Anne-Marie Van de Ven © Powerhouse Museum, all rights reserved

George Gittoes

April 15, 2009

Anne-Marie Van de Ven
Recently I was invited to visit the studio of Australian artist and filmmaker, George Gittoes to inspect his collection of Yellow House Puppet Theatre puppets paintings, ceramics and etchings. Today Gittoes is an internationally renowned filmmaker, but in the Sixties, he was a co-founder of the Yellow House, one of the most colourful contributions to the hippy/psychedelic era in Australia during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Collection, Powerhouse Museum

Beugelfauteuil – Gerrit Rietveld

April 8, 2009

Paul Donnelly
Today it is hard to imagine that the now-ubiquitous tubular-steel style of furniture was once at the fore-front of modern design. In the mid 1920s tubular steel furniture had developed from purely utilitarian use in hospitals and transport to the domestic environment.