A day in Sydney

I’m up in Sydney for the rest of the week, attending the Australian Historical Society conference being held at the University of Sydney. A frugal little soul, I had booked the cheapest room in my 4.5 star hotel (indeed, it was cheaper than many more humble lodgings) and was expecting a cupboard-sized room but it’s fine.  I’m located close to Central railway station with a bus station at the doorstep and about a 20 minute walk from the uni.  The building was previously used as a post office, and prior to that was the site for the Sydney Benevolent Asylum.

I was able to check in early, then headed off for the Art Galley of New South Wales.  I passed the Lindt cafe. Even though journalists emphasized how central the location was, and the proximity of the Channel Seven building, I hadn’t really registered it.

Of course, as a historian of colonial New South Wales, I made a little pilgrimage to the Domain and the early buildings that surround it, and paid my respects to the statues of Lachlan Macquarie, a man I admired back in 1973 when I did Australian history for my VCE and who, more than forty years later and approaching a Ph D, I still admire.

A rather tubby Lachlan Macquarie

St James and the Supreme Court

Then off to the Art Gallery.  You know, I don’t think that I’ve ever been to the Art Gallery here- I keep getting it mixed up with the State Library, which of course I have frequented on several occasions.

The old building of the Art Gallery. There is a new extension at the rear

Speakers Corner at the Domain

There’s usually a  statue created by Mr Resident Judge’s grandfather  in the major Australian galleries: the sculptor Charles Web Gilbert.  The Art Gallery of NSW  had a cluster of bronzes- a positive swarm of nine Mackennals, with just one Web Gilbert and an Eva Benson.

‘The Dutch Cap’ by Charles Web Gilbert. An unfortunate name for a sculpture, perhaps.

Plenty of Mackennals.

Quite a few of the pieces had resonances with books I’ve read.

A work by John Gould, featured in Richard Flanagan’s ‘Gould’s Book of Fish’. Fruit, not fish this time

John Olsen’s depiction of ‘Five Bells’. The poem ‘Five Bells’ was referenced in Gail Jones’ book.

It was getting late- I need to find a bus to get to Sydney University. Thousands of buses, but where was the bus stop? I must admit that the whooshing, belching buses gave me a new appreciation for Melbourne trams. The opening reception was held at the Great Hall, a sandstone building resonant of pomp and tradition, with portraits of Great Male Chancellors (and as far as I could see, two Great Women Chancellors) on the walls.

So let the conference begin!