National Library of Australia - Gateways

ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 61 | February 2003


Creating a Gothic Paradise
Pugin at the Antipodes

[Rt Revd Robert William Willson, First Bishop of Hobart Town], William Paul Dowling, 1853.Archdiocese of Hobart. Photograph: Simon Cuthbert, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery

[Rt Revd Robert William Willson, First Bishop of Hobart Town], William Paul Dowling, 1853
Oil on canvas, 80.9 x 55.2 cm
Not signed. Not dated.
Archdiocese of Hobart
Photograph: Simon Cuthbert, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery

 

The first comprehensive exhibition of the Australian work by the highly influential early-Victorian architect, designer, theorist and staunch Catholic, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812–52), is on display at the National Library of Australia from 13 February to 18 May 2003.

Curated by architectural historian Brian Andrews, this touring exhibition has been organised by the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Five years of archival research and intensive field work have resulted in the identification of an exciting, internationally significant and previously unknown body of Pugin’s work in Australia.

Pugin, best known for his remarkable interiors and furnishings of the British Houses of Parliament, had a direct impact on ecclesiastical architecture in Australia, particularly in Tasmania and New South Wales, during the 19th and 20th centuries. He transformed architecture and design in England, forming the starting point for the Gothic Revival Movement and had considerable impact in mainland Europe. For Pugin the beauty and strength of Gothic design represented a living symbol of an earlier age of potent spiritual faith.

He had a short but brilliant career. By the time of his death at age 49 he had designed more than 100 buildings and produced thousands of designs for furniture, metalwork, stained glass, ceramic tiles, wallpaper, textiles, jewellery and book illustrations. Pugin wrote and illustrated 13 books, including the influential Contrasts (1836) and The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture (1841). The impact of his theoretical writings is still evident today.

A. W. N. Pugin, 1840s, John Hardman Powell, c.1853–54. Made by Mrs Lucy Powell and the Misses L. and W. Brown, Birmingham, 1854. [Re-lined and collar of chasuble restored by the Carmelite nuns, Launceston, Tasmania 1977]. Archdiocese of Hobart Museum and Archives. Photograph: Simon Cuthbert, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
A. W. N. Pugin, 1840s, John Hardman Powell, c.1853–54
Made by Mrs Lucy Powell and the Misses L. and W. Brown, Birmingham, 1854. [Re-lined and collar of chasuble restored by the Carmelite nuns, Launceston, Tasmania 1977]
Silk, velvet, gold braid, metal thread, waxed card, pastes, glass beads, gold metal cord and paillettes
119.5 x 111.0 cm.
Archdiocese of Hobart Museum and Archives
Photograph: Simon Cuthbert, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery

Pugin’s influence in Tasmania came about through his close friendship and shared passion for the Gothic tradition with Robert William Willson, who left England in 1844 to become the first Catholic bishop of Van Diemen’s Land. Accompanying Willson on the voyage was an ecclesiastical treasure-trove that included several tombs, two complete altars, a font, tiles, embroidered silk vestments, exquisite metalwork and three models of small churches, all Pugin designs.

Pugin designed 12 Australian buildings, most of them for John Bede Polding, Catholic Archbishop of Sydney from 1842 to 1877. They included St Francis Xavier’s Church in Berrima, St Stephen’s Church, Brisbane, and extensions to old St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney (destroyed by fire in 1865 along with the organ case, also designed by Pugin). All are brought to life in the exhibition through architectural drawings and both 19th-century and present-day photographs.

While Pugin never visited Australia curator Brian Andrews says ‘There is not a city, town or village in Australia that does not display some evidence of the impact of Pugin and the Gothic Revival, from tiny wooden churches with pointed windows and doors to the magnificent St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne.’

Creating a Gothic Paradise: Pugin at the Antipodes contains more than 280 objects, including furniture, embroidered silk textiles, carved stonework, metalwork, books, paintings and engravings, documents, photographs and drawings, with original Pugin designs displayed alongside the items manufactured from them.
—Yvonne Kennedy, Director, Communications and Marketing

CREATING A GOTHIC PARADISE
PUGIN AT THE ANTIPODES

National Library of Australia, Canberra
13 February – 18 May 2003

Exhibition Gallery 
Open daily 9am – 5pm
Free Admission

Creating a Gothic Paradise: Pugin at the Antipodes is supported by the Gordon Darling Foundation, the Ian Potter Foundation, John Schaeffer Collection and by the Federal Government’s national touring exhibitions grant program, Visions of Australia. The Canberra tour is supported by Novotel Canberra.

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