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William Bligh
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The life of William Bligh offers up a handful of the most remarkable episodes in the history of Britain’s eighteenth and early nineteenth-century maritime empire.
A colourful story from Sideshow Alley
Infamy, the macabre & the portrait
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From infamous bushranger to oyster shop display, curator Jo Gilmour explores the life of George Melville.
Milestones
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This month I turn fifty, soI am just now looking rather more closely than usual at Fiona Foley, Steven Heathcote, Brenda Croft, Russell Crowe, Jeff Fenech, Akira Isogawa, Lee Kernaghan, My Le Thi, Shona Wilson and Mark Taylor AO, mindful that they too were 1964 arrivals.
Missing Persons
Thomas Woolner in Australia
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Desperately seeking Woolner medallions
200 Years of Portraiture
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To celebrate his family bicentenary, Malcolm Robertson looks at the portraiture legacy left by his ancestors.
Centenary of ANZAC
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Just now we pause to mark the centenary of ANZAC, the day when, together with British, other imperial and allied forces, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed at Gallipoli at the start of the ill-starred Dardanelles campaign.
Very fine and very like
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When did notions of very fine and very like become separate qualities of a portrait? And what happens to 'very like' in the age of photographic portraiture?
Banksia and grevillea
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Portraits can render honour to remarkable men and women, but there are other ways.
Goods and chattels
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I have been reading systematically through the ads in the earliest issues of the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, such a rich vein of information about certain aspects of daily life in Regency Sydney.
Talking heads
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In their own words lead researcher Louise Maher on the novel project that lets the Gallery’s portraits speak for themselves.
The consolations of religion
A bushranger meets his maker, 6 January 1826
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James McCabe provides proof that hanging wasn’t necessarily a fate reserved for the perpetrators of murder and other deeds of darkest hue.
An affray which deserves particular mention
Ben Hall and his gang outdone, 6 February 1865
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Bushranger Ben Hall and his cronies held around 40 people hostage in a pub north-west of Goulburn, telling their captives ‘don’t be alarmed; we only came here for a bit of fun’.
Maria Caroline Brownrigg
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At first glance, this small watercolour group portrait of her two sons and four daughters by Maria Caroline Brownrigg (d. 1880) may seem prosaic, even hesitant
Cocky McGrath
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The long life and few words of a vice-regal cockatoo
Dempsey's people
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Those of you who are active in social media circles may be aware that through the past week I have unleashed a blitz on Facebook and Instagram in connection with our new winter exhibition Dempsey’s People: A Folio of British Street Portraits, 1824−1844.
Wicked but Virtuous
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Faith Stellmaker shares pioneering artist and restaurateur Mirka Mora’s lasting legacy on Melbourne’s art, dining and culture.