Foreword

Augustus Earle set out on his travels at a time of consolidation, as the international relations of the day settled into new patterns. Britain had begun to rebuild its Empire, shaken by revolution in America. Earle found a market for his brush and paint in the intense interest of the British in the new world, to the East and in the Pacific. Painting for a mass audience, reached via the rapidly improving technology of print, Augustus Earle carved out a role as a wandering artist—the photojournalist of his generation.


Solitude—Tristan d'Acunha—watching the horizon cat. 15

These are all themes which make this exhibition particularly appropriate at this time. Coinciding with the joint conference of both the Australian and the New Zealand Library and Information Associations, in Wellington in September 1994, it will also be shown in Auckland. We too live in times when the world is settling into new shapes. We face rapidly changing technology and information which moves around the world free of national borders and cultural barriers.

Both Australians and New Zealanders have that restless curiosity, that sense of wonder, which took Earle around the world. Our libraries, because of their historical collections and because of their connections to the new information technologies, are at the heart of such searching.

The collections of the National Library of Australia include important colonial New Zealand material, mostly in the great Rex Nan Kivell Collection. Historical art works from the Nan Kivell collection have toured New Zealand before, first in the 1950s, and more recently in the exhibition Encounter with Eden, a joint venture with the National Library of New Zealand, which travelled widely in 1990–91. The National Library of Australia, conscious that its historical collections include materials which are part of the heritage of New Zealand as well as of Australia, is pleased to have the opportunity to again share with New Zealand audiences this selection of key works from the Rex Nan Kivell Collection. The exhibition will then travel in Australia as part of the National Library's extensive travelling exhibition program.

Warren Horton
Director-General
National Library of Australia


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Exhibition curated by Patricia R. McDonald