Powerhouse Museum - Photo of the Day

Faith Fashion Fusion

2012-02-07T05:30:59Z

Over the past year staff at the Museum have been developing content for the exhibition Faith, Fashion, Fusion: Muslim women’s style in Australia opening in May this year. From streetstyle to red carpet dresses, the exhibition will explore the emerging modest fashion market and the work of a new generation of Australian clothing brands offering stylish clothing for Muslim and non-Muslim women.

Through filmed interviews and photo shoots we have been capturing the stories and creative process behind some of these fashion labels. Our first photography session documented Hijab House’ fashion shoot for its mid summer 2010 campaign. Established in 2010 by Tarik Houchar Hijab House was the first Australian Muslim women’s fashion retailer to open inside a mainstream shopping centre and it was their striking marketing images that made the store stand out in the busy mall environment. Tarik commented that initially he would

see a lot of non-Muslim shoppers walk past and look up and seem amazed at that kind of product being offered in a suburban mall. It was challenging at first, but people are now very accepting of it. They love the concept and they love the accessibility of our brand.

Tarik conceived the ‘You’re late for Tea’ collection as pretty and playful and themed his shoot around the tea party in Alice in Wonderland noting the theme

is very culturally relevant because obviously Muslim women can’t drink things like alcohol, so tea and social engagements are very important for our culture.

This image shows models Edem Dokli, Anastasia Zhelobovskaya and Giarne Wedes posed as if about to take tea – all that is missing is the tea set. Tarik was inspired by the work of Swedish illustrator Lovisa Burfitt so in post production had the photographs overlaid with text and the accoutrements of a tea party. The final image appeared on Hijab House’ Facebook page and as a huge graphic in the window of Hijab House at Bankstown Centro, Sydney.

Post by Glynis Jones, Curator
Photography by Sotha Bourn
© All rights reserved

Bush butcher’s shop

2012-02-05T23:08:34Z

This photograph bush butcher’s shop reveals just how basic the selling of meat could be in the late 1800s. Cattle and sheep were slaughtered out the back and whole carcasses hung out the front while the butcher kept his chopping block inside the one-room shop.

What’s in store: a history of retailing in Australia, Kimberley Webber and Ian Hoskins with Joy McCann, Powerhouse Publishing, 2003, p. 44

Henry King, (1855-1923) was a successful Sydney photographer best known for his view and portrait work. As his career progressed he incorporated landscape photography into his repertoire. He won several international medals, including a bronze at the Chicago exhibition of 1893. Many of King’s best known views of Sydney date from the 1880s and by 1890 his work was held in high regard throughout the colonies. The Powerhouse Museum Tyrrell collection includes 1,334 photographs by Henry King.

Post by Kathy Hackett, Photo Librarian

Photograph by Henry King. Tyrrell Collection
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A Basket of Cats, Postcard 1910

2012-02-06T01:02:25Z

Although many people have quoted the obsessive attention which cats have been given on the internet we shouldn’t imagine this is a new human trait. The intense postcard collecting craze of the early twentieth century saw a similar love of things cute, furry, and whiskery played out across the globe. This particular example was published by an Italian migrant G. Giovanardi who ran his postcard business from Elizabeth Street in Sydney in the early twentieth century.

This postcard is one of around 750 collected between 1905 and 1925 by two sisters, Amy and Lindy Hall. They lived in West Maitland in New South Wales and their cards represent some of the earliest picture postcards produced in Australia. This one was posted to Linda from the New South Wales coastal town of Forster on the 12 January 1910.

Geoff Barker, 2012
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References
Sydney Morning Herald, 6 April 1908, p.11

Urban glamour

2012-02-04T03:28:14Z

Little is known about this simple but perfectly composed image from the Bruno Benini archive. Taken in a low light environment with fast film, only the bare minimum of detail is visible: the back of a woman’s head, her upswept hair, a pearl earring, hands, and a row of lights in the background. The image is a good example of Benini’s talent for the creation of atmosphere – in this case, an atmosphere of mystery.

At first it wasn’t clear whether the woman was dancing, adjusting her hair, or striking a pose, but the number ‘8’, handwritten at the bottom of the negative, was a clue. The photograph seems to be part of the same shoot as the section of the proof sheet below with frames numbered ‘3’ and ‘4’. From these images we can see partial details of a woman’s face as she adjusts her hair and applies makeup, suggesting that the environment may have been a backstage one such as a theatre or a fashion parade. Another person is just visible standing behind her in the shadows.

This image was displayed in the 2010 Powerhouse Museum exhibition, Creating the look: Benini and fashion photography, in a section titled, Urban glamour.

Post by Kathy Hackett, Photo Librarian

Photography by Bruno Benini
© Benini estate

Trainspotting 2011

2012-02-03T00:41:20Z

This is our Trainspotting 2011 photo competition exhibition that is currently on display at the Museum. We have 47 amazing photographs featured in this exhibition from our 2011 competition that we run on Flickr. This exhibition will only be on until the 13th February. Don’t forget that you can also enter your photos into our 2012 Trainspottting photo competition which is now open. All the details are on our website and you can also enter via our Flickr group.

Photography by Marinco Kojdanovski
© All rights reserved

Traditional Sanjo music

2012-02-02T01:29:46Z

This is a detail of a Korean musician dressed in national costume playing an instrument and performing traditional Korean, Sanjo folk music that featured during the opening of our exhibition Spirit of jang-in: treasures of Korean metal work.This opening was celebrating the exhibition which traces the development of metal craft from ancient artisans to the spectacular ‘kingdoms of gold’ of the Silla royalty, the influence of Buddhism on craft skills and practice, the simple beauty of everyday objects, and the impact of the dark days of the early 20th century. Reflecting a contemporary spirit of jang-in, a selection of works from Korean artists living in Korea and Australia is also featured.

This exhibition closes on the 12th of February.

Photography by Sotha Bourn
© All rights reserved

Interlace

2012-02-01T04:48:27Z

This is one of the digital artworks that is featured in our Love Lace exhibition. The work, created by Cecilia Heffer and Bert Bongers, consists of video projection: silkscreened, machine stitched silk organza on soluble substrates embedded with sensors, interacting with a digital interface projection of the Australian landscape.

This is their artist statement:

InterLace is an interactive video lace installation. The work sits between the definitions of a built environment and a multimedia environment. It is a response to the space and landscape of the travels by the artists separately and together within Australia.

Designed as a visual, spatial and tangible sensory experience, the work transforms lace in a three-dimensional augmented environment. Traditional expressions of lace pattern are redefined through the use of innovative materials, process and video technologies.

Sensors stitched into fragile delicate lace surfaces detect changes in light, and the proximity and movement of the audience. The work becomes an augmented fabric, with a multiplicity of layers of image and meaning; exploring the spatial mysterious interplay between real and virtual worlds. Its layers explore light and shadow between material and ephemeral perceptions of negative and positive space.

Photography by Marinco Kojdanovski
© All rights reserved

George Street

2012-01-30T23:29:19Z

This image taken sometime between 1884-1917 comes from our Tyrrell glass plate negative collection. This full plate is titled ‘George Street near Hunter Street’ and was photographed by Kerry and Co. Our collection states:

This photographic negative is one of 2900 Kerry & Co. photographs in the Powerhouse Museum’s ‘Tyrrell Collection’ once owned by Sydney bookseller, James Tyrrell. Almost all of these negatives are 21.5 x 20.3 cm (10 x 8 inch) glass plates and many of those now held by the Powerhouse Museum collection would have been used to create postcards. In addition to the Kerry & Co. Studio images, the Tyrrell Collection at the Powerhouse Museum includes glass plate negatives published by Henry King and a number of other negatives by unattributed photographers

Using the zoomify tool on our website you can read all the signs featured on the building facades. Here is a screenshot as an example.

Photography by Kerry and Co
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Boy and Water Buffalo

2012-01-24T23:00:10Z

This is yet another image from the collection of hand coloured lantern slides donated to the Museum in 1978 by the Australia – China Society.

According to The Continuum Encyclopedia of Animal Symbolism in World Art by Hope B. Werness, scenes of young boys riding water buffalos, as depicted in the above image, have been very popular throughout Chinese art history. The juxtaposition of a young vulnerable child and a physically powerful animal were to symbolise docile nature of buffalos and ease with which they can be made obedient, even by a child. The water buffalo and ox also symbolise spring, the season in which farmers return to the fields with their buffalo drawn ploughs.

Photographer unknown
No known copyright restrictions

The Hall of Gods, Hualin Temple, 1872

2012-01-24T04:47:41Z

The Temple of the 500 Gods, photographer John Thomson, 1872

This photograph was taken by the British photographer John Thomson around 140 years ago during his travels through China. It shows an interior view of ‘hall of gods’ in the Buddist ‘Temple of the 500 Gods’ or ‘Magnificent Forest Temple’. Nowadays this early temple is most often referred to as the Hualin Temple.

In 1872 Thomson, an Englishman, travelled to the western suburbs of Guangzhou, which he referred to as Canton to take a series of photographs of the Temple. It was built during Southern Song Dynasty (nán sòng) but was expanded in 1654 when it was renamed Hualin Temple. According to Thomson the temple was again rebuilt in 1775, under the direction of the Emperor Kien-lung making it one of the five largest Buddhist temples in Guangzhou, with a large team of monks.

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Photographing an interior like this was no easy task as the emulsions were much less receptive to light. As a result you can see how the light from the windows has bled into the photograph due to Thomson’s long exposure.

Shanghai Bund, c. 1930

2012-01-24T02:07:22Z

This beautiful hand-coloured glass lantern slide showing The Bund in Shanghai is part of a collection of images that depict aspects of China in the early 20th century, including historical places, architecture, social etiquette, minority groups and their customs and geography of China with an emphasis on Peking.

According to the museum catalogue records, the street shown in the image is Zhongshan Road, which runs along the western bank of the Huangpu River. The Bund usually refers to the buildings and wharves on this section of the road, as well as some adjacent areas. The Shanghai Bund has dozens of historical buildings that once housed numerous banks and trading houses from the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Italy, Russia, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Belgium, as well as the consulates of Russia and Britain, a newspaper, the Shanghai Club and the Masonic Club. This was initially a British settlement; later the British and American settlements were combined in the International Settlement. A building boom at the end of 19th century and beginning of 20th century led to the Bund becoming a major financial hub of East Asia.

The Shanghai of the 1920s and 30s came to be represented as a glamorous and mysterious place where western modernism and eastern exoticism met. The street in the photograph is filled with men in traditional Chinese dress and rows of modern motor cars. Shanghai was also the centre of Chinese fashion and became known as ‘the Paris of the East.’ Many artists, writers, performers and entrepreneurs were drawn to the burgeoning port city during this period.

Florence Broadhurst, some of whose portraits have been posted previously on Photo of the Day, was one expatriate resident of Shanghai in the mid 1920s.

According to the original catalogue record, the box of lantern slides from which this image was drawn was originally given to the Australia – China Society by the Methodist Church at the time they joined the Uniting Church of Australia in 1977. One of the lantern slides shows a portrait of Hudson Taylor who was the founder of the China Inland Mission (CIM, now OMF International) who visited Australia at the end of 19th century to promote the Australian Missions. The box is inscribed, ‘The Rev. Cannon’. The Reverend Cannon possibly had a relationship with CIM or the Australian Missions during the 1930s.

Post by Kathy Hackett, Photo Librarian

Photographer unknown
No known copyright restrictions

Chief Priest, Hualin Buddhist Temple, 1872

2012-01-24T04:46:25Z

The Abbot, Hualin Temple, photographer John Thomson, 1872

This photograph of the Chief Priest of the Hualin Temple was taken by John Thomson sometime around 1872. He first met this Priest some three years earlier when he was introduced by a local Customs Official. According to Thomson he was received with great courtesy, conducted to his private apartments, and then offered tea-cakes and fruit.

While in the apartments Thomson was also taken aback by the rare and beautiful flowers which grew in this inner sanctum of the temple, particularly a Sacred Lotus in full bloom, and growing in an ornamental tank. The Priest who had spent over half his life in the temple was ‘greatly devoted’ to the flowers spending some time describing their beauty to his visitor.

This photograph was taken on Thoson’s second visit and in it we can see the same priest with some of the flowers and plants he so carefully nurtured.

No known copyright restrictions

Bride and groom

2012-01-23T05:37:03Z

This beautiful hand-coloured glass lantern slide is part of a collection of images that depict aspects of China in the early 20th century, including historical places, architecture, social etiquette, minority groups and their customs and geography of China with an emphasis on Peking.

According to the original catalogue record, the box of lantern slides was originally given to the Australia – China Society by the Methodist Church at the time they joined the Uniting Church of Australia in 1977. One of the lantern slides shows a portrait of Hudson Taylor who was the founder of the China Inland Mission (CIM, now OMF International) who visited Australia at the end of 19th century to promote the Australian Missions. The box is inscribed, ‘The Rev. Cannon’. The Reverend Cannon possibly had a relationship with CIM or the Australian Missions during the 1930s.

Lantern slides, positive photographic images designed for projection, were commonly used as an educational tool, often to illustrate lectures. The set of slides from which this image is drawn may have been used as part of an education program for people who were going to the China Inland Mission to learn about China and the CIM programs. The colouring of the slides was an important way of conveying accurate information about China, in this case, the custom of the bride wearing red, a colour associated with strength and luck.

Post by Kathy Hackett, Photo Librarian

Photographer unknown
No known copyright restrictions

Tea House, Guangzhou, 1872

2012-01-24T04:45:30Z

Tea House, Guangzhou, photographer John Thomson, 1872

In 1872, when Thomson visited Gaungzhou (Canton), most of the tea-firing houses were situated next to a river or creek. In this photograph we can see a number of men who were employed during the ‘tea season’ to pick and sort the tea, or preparing the chests it was to be stored in. Inside the tea-house are one or two offices where the partners, treasurer and bookkeeper work, while outside the chairs and table were made ready for visitors.

The rear of the house was where the tea is stored and weighed before being exported while above women and children worked in the loft. Here they removed stalks and foreign matter from the bamboo trays on which the tea is spread out.

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As an English colonial Thomson was very impressed with the business-like atmosphere of the place “… where a thoroughly organized system of divided labour has produced from the leaf of a single shrub so many varieties of one of the most delicate and salutary luxuries we posses.”

A Chinese bow

2012-01-23T03:57:54Z

Bowing is a traditional greeting in East Asia, particularly in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and China. Different bows are used for apologies and gratitude, to express humility, sincerity, remorse, or deference. Bowing is often reserved for occasions such as wedding ceremonies and as a gesture of respect for the deceased.

Post by Kathy Hackett, Photo Librarian

Photographer unknown
No known copyright restrictions

2012 Year of the Dragon

2012-01-23T03:39:33Z

Happy Chinese New Year.

This is the Year of the Dragon, one of the most powerful and lucky signs in the Chinese New Year zodiac. According to the official Sydney celebrations, Dragons are innovative, flexible, self-assured and passionate, making good artists diplomats and politicians.

This image is from our collection has the following description in our database.

Glass lantern slide, “Bronze Dragon”, bronze dragon and phoenix statues in front of the Hall of Audience, hand coloured glass / paper, maker unknown, China / Australia, c.1930. Hand coloured glass lantern slide showing bronze dragon and phoenix statues in front of the Hall of Audience. Both of these statues have a marble plinth and symbolize the Emperor.

No known copyright restrictions

One Armed Bandits

2012-01-18T04:00:32Z

Poker machines are very much in the news at the moment with the controversy surrounding the proposal for ‘pre-commitment technology’ in Australia. This image is from the time when poker machines were mechanical (rather than electronic) and required the user to pull the handle in order to spin the wheels. This image was published in ‘Sydney, A Book of Photographs’ by David Mist in 1969 and carried the caption:

Over forty million dollars are spent on club entertainment in Australia every year. A major attraction in most clubs is the poker machine – referred to as “the one-armed bandit”. The multi-million dollar St George Leagues Club is the largest in the southern hemisphere which provides a complex of facilities for up to four thousand people.

St George Leagues Club was the first ‘superclub’ in Australia and opened 1963. It set the standard of providing an opulent environment for food, entertainment and sporting facilities which has become the hallmark of clubs in Australia. As can be seen from the nick-name ‘one-armed bandit’ Australians have always felt somewhat suspicious of these machines.

Section of a Roman diptych from the collection of the Vicomte de Genze

2012-01-20T04:41:37Z

Photograph of a section of a Roman diptych carved from ivory at the beginning of the 6th century from the Collection of the Vicomte de Genze in Paris. It shows the bottom par of one leaf of a consular diptych, probably of Flavius Anastasius. In the upper part are two victorious race-horses in the circus games, with their heads decorated with feathers, being led by two Amazons.

In the lower part are a group of acrobats, three of whom, nearly naked, are supporting the head of a fourth, whose legs are up in the air with two children dangling from them and a third being held up to join them. To the left is another performer balancing three balls, one on his raised left knee, one on his forehead, one in his left hand, and about to catch a fourth in his right hand. To the right is a performer with a mask and a child.

This photo-mechanical print is one of the 24 Woodburytypes pasted into J. O. Westwood’s 1876 publication, ‘Fictile [casts of] Ivories in the South Kensington Museum’.

St. David’s Rugby Union Team, Sydney, 1908

2012-01-19T03:15:26Z

St. David's Rugby Union Team, Sydney, 1908

Over 100 years ago, on the 20 July 1908 a young man named W. Bridland, posted this card to his grandmother from the Redfern Post Office in Sydney. He was one of the members of the football team pictured above but unfortunately we don’t know which one. The team was formed by the ‘St. David’s Young Men’s Gymnasium’ which we think was based in Surrey Hills but again details are sketchy. Can anyone help?

St. David's Rugby Union Team, Sydney, 1908, (reverse)

The reason the card ended up in the Powerhouse Museum collections is because his grandmother, Mrs. Hall of West Maitland, had two daughters Amy and Linda who collected all the postcards she received and added them to their collection. This collection of over 750 cards was donated to the Museum in the late 1960s and has just been digitised and made available on-line.

No known copyright restrictions

Use Only Fresh Food – Milk

2012-01-16T23:11:38Z

This is a postcard from our collection that was produced by the NSW Fresh Food and Ice Company Ltd, Australia, around 1900-1910. On the back of the postcard is the caption:

The NSW Fresh Food and Ice Company Ltd, We make a special feature of early morning calls

This sweet young girl wearing a pin striped dress, that has been hand-painted green, and is standing next to a broken jug of milk that has been spilled on the floor. Interestingly the National Museum of Australia also has a copy of this postcard in their collection. The National Library of Australia has this great truck accompanied with the caption

“N.S.W. 25 Harbor St. Fresh Food & Ice Co. Ltd., Pure ice cream.”