Visual arts

Out of Ireland have we come: the arts in a century of change

Out of Ireland have we come: the arts in a century of change

March 18, 2016

Photography, Rare Books & Arts, Updates, Visual arts:

As the State Library celebrates the anniversary of the Easter Rising in Dublin, 1916, it seems appropriate to look at how Irish artists have transformed their culture over the course of a not uneventful century.

PBS Home Video, 2006

Warhol & Weiwei, together at last

February 5, 2016

Rare Books & Arts, Visual arts:

Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei, strange bedfellows? Maybe not……

Just inside the cover: the miniature art of the bookplate

Just inside the cover: the miniature art of the bookplate

November 27, 2015

Rare Books & Arts, Visual arts:

Guest blogger and library volunteer Christine Bell shares her passion for bookplates and throws some light on the work she’s doing behind the scenes on some of our own collections.

New books: revolutions in England, Scotland at war and Mr Nolan transforms the Australian landscape

New books: revolutions in England, Scotland at war and Mr Nolan transforms the Australian landscape

October 30, 2015

Painting, Rare Books & Arts, Visual arts:

A clutch of new books explore Turner’s “born again” vision, the back-to-the-future philosophy of William Morris, Scotland’s artists at war, and the remarkable life and art of Sidney Nolan (shown here in a photograph by Albert Tucker, c.1940s).

Catherine the Great by Johann Baptist von Lampi

From Russia with love: treasures from the Hermitage

September 18, 2015

Decorative arts, Painting, Rare Books & Arts, Visual arts:

Melbourne is currently experiencing a little bit of Imperial Russia with the exhibition, Masterpieces From the Hermitage: the Legacy of Catherine the Great, now showing at the National Gallery of Victoria. Here at the State Library of Victoria you can bury yourself in these treasures all year round.

National Library of Australia Publishing in Association with the State Library of Victoria, 2015

Mining for treasure, or digging deep for art

July 17, 2015

Rare Books & Arts, Visual arts:

S.T.Gill is perhaps best known for his iconic visions of everyday life on the goldfields, and a quick search of our catalogue shows that he was not alone in finding a rich vein of inspiration in the more industrial side of life.

Sa’di, Gulistan, State Library Victoria, folio 21

Persian treasures in Mirror of the World

June 26, 2015

Exhibitions, Rare Books & Arts, Visual arts:

Anna Welch introduces us to some beautiful Persian manuscripts currently on display in the Mirror of the World exhibition

Paramount Records, 1970

The Battle of Waterloo and its 200 year old legacy

June 18, 2015

Film, Painting, Rare Books & Arts, Visual arts:

The Battle of Waterloo continues to fascinate, even 200 years after those ferocious days

Wendingen: cover by El Lissitzky

Wendingen: Designing modernity

June 5, 2015

Rare Books & Arts, Visual arts:

Anna Welch introduces us to an art magazine that is itself a work of art

Norman Lindsay,  c.1918

Art on the Front Line: lest we forget

April 24, 2015

Comic books, Rare Books & Arts, Visual arts:

Australian artists have fallen-in with our fighting forces since colonial times, witnessing, reporting and questioning all aspects of war.