A rickety revolving bookcase, a length of bobble fringe, a muddy jardiniere … our approach to collecting is based on history, not connoisseurship.

At the Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, we are interested in the history of house and garden design and interior furnishing. We collect objects that have an ability to elucidate or exemplify some aspect of this history, whether typical or exceptional.

In 1998 a pair of cotton curtains, c1962, with the selvedge imprinted ‘John Coburn, “Billabong”, Australian Artists Originals, by John Kaldor Sekers Fabric’ was acquired by the research collection. Late in 2004, the original artwork for Coburn’s textile design was offered for sale through public auction and purchased by the HHT.  

In 1962, John Kaldor commissioned paintings from nine Australian artists, to provide designs for furnishing textiles for Sekers Fabrics. The paintings and their corresponding textiles were exhibited in Sydney and Melbourne in early 1963. John Coburn’s fellow exhibitors were Judy Cassab, Russell Drysdale, Cedric Flower, Donald Friend, James Gleeson, Elaine Haxton, Clem Meadmore, John Olsen and Ian Van Wieringen with designs ranging from ‘Terrace Houses’ (Flower) to ‘Marine Encounter’ (Olsen). An article in Woman’s Day in January 1963 declared ‘art-loving homemakers, who could never afford to own original paintings by famous artists … can now turn fabric connoisseurs. They’ll be able to curtain their windows, upholster their furniture, and cover their cushions in fabrics designed by these artists’.

The HHT’s acquisition of both Coburn’s painting and the ‘Billabong’ curtains allows us to represent a significant moment in the 20th century history of interior furnishing in Australia, the collaboration between important Australian artists and a leading textile manufacturer resulting in a range of furnishing textiles of exceptional quality.

In October 2004 the HHT purchased at auction two revolving bookcases provenanced to Patrick White (1912–1990) and Manoly Lascaris (1912–2003). White, a writer and Nobel Laureate, and Lascaris, his partner, lived in Martin Road Centennial Park from 1964 until their respective deaths and the bookcases were used in White’s study and the sitting room. They are recorded as having been purchased as a result of an advertisement in the Sydney Morning Herald¹ and are two of many bookcases used in the White/Lascaris household. A mismatched pair – the one used in White’s studio has a white painted finish, the other is stained timber – they were atypical of the mostly modern furniture purchased by White and Lascaris in the 1950s and 1960s, often from Artes Studios, Sydney.² The HHT has acquired these objects for their important association with a great Australian writer and his house.

Unique among Australian collecting institutions, the HHT places an emphasis on developing a collection of furnishing trimmings. The world of trimmings has a specialist vocabulary of esoteric terms used to distinguish differences in construction and use – tie-backs, tassels, macarons, cords, braids, ribbons, gimps, galloons and cut, bullion, bobble and tassel fringes to name a few. A large collection of these has recently been acquired from retired decorator Robert W Lloyd.
       
Lloyd, born in Adelaide in 1927, became involved in the interior furnishing and decorating business at the age of 16 and began his career making lampshades for Paul Carlyle in Rundle Street, Adelaide. After working briefly for Reg Riddell in Little Collins Street, Melbourne, Robert moved to Sydney around 1947 and started a long career working for the furnishing department of McCathie’s department store, Stephen Kalmar, Merle du Boulay and Mary White (all leading lights in the furnishing, interior decorating and furniture design business of the day). But it was with Miss Del Agnew, and her business Tinker Tailor Interiors, that Robert had the longest association and it is from this period that most of the trimmings are provenanced.

The Lloyd material is an important addition to the research collection and is representative of the trimmings used on soft furnishings – curtains, blinds, valances, upholstery and loose covers – in the last half of the 20th century.

The research collection acquires garden furniture and garden ornament with provenance to NSW gardens or with association to local manufacturers, merchants, designers or makers: garden edging tiles, planters, urns, rustic furniture, wirework plant stands, gnomes and sundials.

A recent addition to the collection is a stoneware jardiniere, c1925, manufactured by Wunderlich Limited at their Rosehill works in western Sydney. While our example is ‘stoney grey’ they were also available in red, chocolate and green. Wunderlich also manufactured urns, birdbaths, flower vases and boxes – very popular and fashionable additions to gardens of the 1920s and 30s. A Wunderlich advertisement in Art and Australia in September 1925 proclaims, ‘everywhere you will notice Garden Pottery being brought into service to enrich an expanse of lawn, or to confer additional charm around a pathway or at some rustic doorway …’

To coincide with the HHT’s move to The Mint in 2004, it commissioned conservator Ian Thomson to design and make two revolving bookcases for the library – one for use upstairs in the scholars gallery and the other downstairs to showcase new acquisitions.

Constructed from Australian red cedar (Toona ciliata), NSW rose-mahogany (Dysoxylum fraseranum), black wattle (Acacia mearnsii) and Tasmanian musk (Olearia argophylla) the bookcases needed to be functional but also needed to complement the existing furniture and the spaces in which they were to be used.

We encourage you to come and see, and indeed use, the revolving bookcases on your next visit to the library!

1. M Walker, The future of 20 Martin Road Centennial Park - the home of Patrick White and Manoly Lascaris, Sydney, 1996, p78.

2. ibid, p84.
       
Joanna Nicholas
Curator, Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection

Acknowledgments: I wish to thank Grace Cochrane, Powerhouse Museum Sydney, and Ian Thomson for their assistance in the preparation of this article.

First published in Insites, Autumn 2005