National Library of Australia

The modernist RSL club, the Art Deco cinema, the stilted Queenslander or the elaborate Edwardian. The iconography of Australia's regional towns is familiar to many of us, whether we live, work and play in these places, or just journey through. A distinctive Australian architecture has developed, less glamorous or coherent than the grand public buildings in the capital cities, but...

Petite, plucky and always immaculately dressed in the constraint of Victorian finery...throughout her life she was acclaimed internationally, winning 29 medals, and accolades from leading art critics. Her work was also collected by royalty, including Queen Victoria. - Patricia Fullerton, 2002 Ellis Rowan (1848-1922) was a painter, naturalist, writer and explorer. For almost 50 years, she travelled to remote parts...

Ellis Rowan (1848-1922) was a painter, naturalist, writer and explorer. For almost 50 years, she travelled to remote parts of Australia, India, Europe, America and New Guinea in pursuit of exotic flowers and wildlife to paint. One of Australia's most-loved botanical artists, she was a woman who made her mark at a time when scientific illustration was a male domain....

Cazneaux's work is what matters, its place in the history of Australian photography and its influence on past, present and future generations of photographers. - Max Dupain, 1978 Harold Cazneaux (1878-1953) is widely considered the greatest Australian photographer of the early twentieth century. In portraiture, architectural and industrial photography, landscapes, and documentary work, he showed versatility, great imagination, and technical...

Olive Cotton is one of Australia's most respected photographers, with a career that spanned over six decades. In 1995, the National Library of Australia produced a volume collating over 60 works, from her earliest photographs taken with a box Brownie, her exhibition work in the 1930s, and examples of the commercial work from the Max Dupain Studio during the war....

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Wolfgang Sievers (1913-2007) fled Nazi Germany to make a new home in Australia. Through his striking images of the post-war manufacturing boom, he would go on to become one of the country's eminent photographers. Sievers' images celebrate the excitement of the modern machine age. The photographer documented the height of Australian industry,...

The National Library of Australia holds millions of letters in its collections: love letters, reports on scientific discoveries, impassioned pleas, newsy notes about the week that's just been, responses from politicians to members of the electorate, letters to the editor, and so many more. We've made a selection of remarkable letters from those millions, and passed them on to modern...

1975 was a year to remember. Jaws and The Rocky Horror Show filled cinemas, and Picnic at Hanging Rock and Sunday too Far Away proved that Australians wanted to see their own stories on the big screen. Australia's favourite television show, Countdown, provided a soundtrack for suburban life with glam rockers Sky Hooks and the infectious pop of Swedish Eurovision...

Vintage Crochet builds on the success of Vintage Knits (2022) and features vintage patterns from Australian publications such as the Australian Women's Weekly and the Australian Woman's Mirror. The book presents a curated selection of patterns from these publications from as early as 1888, tried and tested to suit the needs of the modern day crocheter. The book contains instructions...

People of the past knew the magic of a handmade garment - the uniqueness, the custom fit, the time and care taken by the knitter. In today's world of mass-production, we now crave the individuality and satisfaction that comes with creating a piece of clothing for ourselves or a loved one from scratch. Knitters in the early decades of the...