The collection of Robert Edwards AO

Hordern House are pleased to be offering for sale books from the celebrated collection of Robert Edwards.
 
There cannot be a single Australian who has not been in in some way affected by Robert Edwards. Guiding spirit at different times to many of our most important cultural institutions, collector extraordinaire, progenitor of the so-called "blockbuster" exhibitions and long-term director of Art Exhibitions Australia, anthropologist and archaeologist, founding director of the Aboriginal Arts Board, early and passionate advocate of Aboriginal art and specifically the Papunya Tule movement... The list is endless. His career required a day's symposium to summarise it. Luminaries of the cultural scene from Betty Churcher to Andrew Sayers, and including Neil MacGregor of the British Museum, met in Canberra in March 2011: happily the proceedings of that symposium were recorded and audio and transcript versions are available here.
 
In June 2012 we released our first catalogue of some of the major items from the collection. Complementing the significant Aboriginal material are fine copies of inland exploration accounts. The collection is especially rich in South Australian material, including the scarce and impressive 1843 map of Adelaide by George Strickland Kingston.

Read the Catalogue Review from The Book Collector Autumn Edition 2012 

The second major catalogue of books was released in July 2013, this volume describes 242 chiefly nineteenth-century books on the subject of Australian Life, encompassing politics and policy, exploration, the Australian Aborigines, emigration, convicts and transportation, the British Parliament and colonial policy, with material relating to all the Australian states and territories. A choice selection of view books adds to those which were described in the earlier catalogue with fine examples of work by Angas, Gill, Westmacott. Familiar names such as Leichhardt and Franklin rub shoulders with all manner of explorers, surgeons, historians and other rogues.

 

 

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