Current Exhibitions
Write of fancy: The Golden Cockerel Press
Ground floor, Baillieu Library, 17 August-26 September 2008
The exhibition Write of fancy, curated by Kerrianne Stone, will explore the hearts and minds of the inventors, writers and artists of this British press which operated between 1920 and 1960. It will showcase examples from the Baillieu Library’s exceptional collection of Golden Cockerel books, comprising the gifts of various individual donors and the Friends of the Baillieu Library. Examples include Eric Gill and Robert Gibbings’ collaboration on The four Gospels (1931), John Buckland Wright’s illustration of Endymion (1947), and maritime history books.
Golden Cockerel books achieved a visual harmony between content, typography and illustration. The exhibition is a chance to discover how this private press from its inception was a flight of fancy, and how through its words and images it became a ‘write of fancy.’
One World One Dream: Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Souvenirs and Chinese Books
Third floor, Baillieu Library (outside Cultural Collections Reading Room), until end of August 2008
To celebrate the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, the East Asian Collection has created a display of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games souvenirs and books. The exhibit comprises a variety of interesting items such as children's comic books, rhymes, coins, countdown badges, cups, fans, Fuwa (mascots), postcards, posters, stamps and T-shirts. Chinese books on display cover a variety of subjects including stadium design and architecture, manners, pollution, marketing, history and Beijing Olympic Games research materials.
Microsurgical innovation: Ophthalmic instrumentation
Medical History Museum, 2nd floor, Brownless Biomedical Library, 28 July to 31 October 2008
This exhibition is a celebration of the life and work of the late Professor Emeritus Gerard William Crock, AO MB BS FRCS FRACS FRACP FRACO (1929-2007), a graduate of the Melbourne Medical School who became the head of the first ophthalmic academic department in Australia, and the Foundation Professor of Ophthalmology in May 1963. He was a brilliant and innovative surgeon and clinician, whose research in microsurgical instrumentation revolutionised ocular surgery. He introduced techniques and procedures that are now seen as the standard of care and he was a world leader and specialist in retina, cornea and glaucoma and the first to perform cataract microsurgery.
The exhibition is based on the collection of over 1,000 photographs, documents, design drawings and instruments that Professor Crock donated to the Medical History Museum. The John Reid Charitable Trusts provided a generous grant for the collection to be sorted, identified, catalogued and preserved, and for this exhibition to be displayed.
Murderous Melbourne: A Celebration of Australian Crime Fiction and Place
Leigh Scott Gallery, first floor, Baillieu Library, 10 June to 7 September 2008
A Baillieu Library Special Collections exhibition
Australia has nurtured many fine crime fiction writers over the years, starting with Mary Fortune and Fergus Hume in the late 1800s. However, the post-World War 2 years represent crime fiction’s ‘golden age’ in this country. The ranks of Australian crime fiction writers from this period include Carter Brown, S.H. Courtier, Geoff de Fraga, Charlotte Jay (inaugural winner of the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1954), Helen Mace, A.E. Martin, Margot Neville, Eric North, James Preston, Elizabeth Salter, Arthur Upfield and June Wright — to name but a few. More recently, Marshall Browne, Peter Corris, Kerry Greenwood, Barry Maitland, Shane Maloney and Peter Temple (winner of the UK Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award in 2007) have been widely acclaimed for their crime fiction writing.
The exhibition Murderous Melbourne features items from the University of Melbourne’s extensive collection of Australian crime fiction. It also showcases work by third-year students of architecture and Master’s students of landscape architecture from the University of Melbourne, who have used Australian crime fiction as a tool for stretching the boundaries of creativity and design. The architecture students have designed a Centre for Australian Crime Fiction, to be located on the car park adjacent to the north court of the Union building. A major influence on their designs was June Wright’s 1961 crime novel Faculty of Murder, set in the University of Melbourne. The landscape architecture students have designed stage props for S.H. Courtier’s crime novels See Who’s Dying (1967) and Murder’s Burning (1967), both set in the Australian outback.
Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack
Ian Potter Museum of Art, 15 May to 31 August 2008
Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack is a key figure within Victoria’s cultural history. A master of the legendary German Bauhaus design school, Hirschfeld Mack emigrated to Australia in 1941 and taught at Geelong Grammar School. He experimented with colour theory, materials and techniques to create paintings, prints and drawings that harnessed the dynamic and rhythmic qualities of colours and shapes. This exhibition investigates the experimental aspects of Mack’s practice through a display of over sixty artworks and visual tools such as colour charts.
Australian Archaeologists at Pella
Ian Potter Museum of Art, 10 April to 14 September 2008
This exhibition looks at the ancient city of Pella in the North Jordan Valley and tells the story of technology, trade and daily life over many centuries. It also describes the significant discoveries Australian archaeologists have made in Jordan for over fifty years. Excavations have revealed Pella as one of the most important ancient cities in Jordan, with a pattern of continuous human settlement stretching back to Neolithic times (c. 6500 BCE). Objects in the exhibition are drawn from the National Gallery of Australia’s collection, currently on long-term loan to the University of Sydney’s Nicholson Museum, augmented by artefacts held in the University of Melbourne's Classics and Archaeology Collection.