A National Library exhibition exploring the work of colonial artist George French Angas, one of the 19th century's outstanding colonial artists. On from 14 August to 14 November 2021.
1 Aug 2021
George French Angas (1822-1886) spent 18 months sketching and observing in Australia and New Zealand between 1844 and 1845. It was a period of decisive and irreversible cultural change. The young Angas excelled at capturing the minute detail of plants and people, objects and landscapes, and rapidly assembled a portfolio of 250 fine watercolours.
In this fully illustrated volume, Philip Jones has used Angas s sketches, watercolours, lithographs and journal accounts to retrace his Antipodean journeys in vivid detail. Set in the context of his time, Angas emerges both as a brilliant artist and as a flawed Romantic idealist, rebelling against his father s mercantilism while entirely reliant upon the colonial project enabling him to depict early ways of life.
Guide to selected collections
The National Library s collections range in date from the eleventh century to the present, take in every country in the world and are exceptionally broad in format and subject. They consist of books, pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers, ephemera, maps, manuscripts, private archives, music scores, pictures, microform and digital materials.
A significant proportion of what the Library holds, including some of the rarest and most valuable material, was acquired as collections. Some were built up by individual collectors, families, booksellers and learned societies, often over a long period (formed collections). Other collections have been assembled from various sources by the Library itself in an effort to achieve great strength in particular subject areas (subject collections). Many of the collections have outstanding research value.