Go behind-the-scenes as we reframe ‘Red-tailed Black Cockatoos’

We delve into a major reframing project for prominent Queensland ornithological artist and taxidermist Anthony Alder’s (1838-1915) painting Red-tailed Black Cockatoos c.1895 currently on display in the Queensland Art Gallery’s Australian Art collection. Anthony Alder (Standing 3rd from the right) DELVE DEEPER: Go behind-the-scenes as we conserve ‘Red-tailed Black Cockatoos’ The oil on canvas Red-tailed…

Step back in time to Brisbane’s pioneering days

This watercolour (illustrated) is a preparatory sketch for the oil painting Slab cottage, Bowen Hills 1894 (illustrated). Isaac Walter Jenner (1836-1902) was interested in the picturesque subject rather than Brisbane’s impressive commercial and public buildings that were already embellishing Queen Street, the main thoroughfare of the city of Brisbane (illustrated). ‘Sketch for ‘Slab cottage, Bowen…

Bringing Isaac Walter Jenner’s paintings back to life

Two oil paintings by Isaac Walter Jenner (1836–1902) from 1897 and gifted to the Gallery in 2020 both needed significant interventive structural and cosmetic conservation treatment before going on display this year for the first time. Ruby Awburn, then Assistant Conservator (Paintings) at QAGOMA, describes the months of careful work required to restore these important…

Go behind-the-scenes as we conserve ‘Red-tailed Black Cockatoos’

Large scale paintings from Queensland’s Colonial period are extremely rare. Currently on display in the Australian Art Collection (Gallery 10, Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Galleries) at the Queensland Art Gallery is an oil painting that has recently been conserved while research into a replica frame have brought it back to its former glory. This…

Go back in time when artists travelled to Lone Pine for inspiration

We look back to when Brisbane’s Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary was established in 1927 by the Reid family as a safe refuge for sick, injured, and orphaned koalas, it was the first such sanctuary of its kind, beginning with just two called Jack and Jill, since then it has grown from these original koalas to…

Ian Fairweather, Gethsemane 1958

Gethsemane: Ian Fairweather’s masterwork

In his lifetime, Ian Fairweather (29 September 1891–1974) — one of Australia’s greatest artists who painted some of his most celebrated works here in Queensland, on Bribie Island — created two masterworks relating to stories of Christ’s life: the occasion of Christ’s birth which he painted in 1962, titled Epiphany (illustrated), purchased by the Gallery…