SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA.- It’s a Sydney Harbour rarely seen, if ever…and one you wouldn’t expect to be depicted in a library collection! Due to popular demand, the State Library of NSW has extended its free Sydney Harbour: Seldom Scene exhibition until 10 June 2007. Sydney Harbour: Seldom Scene exposes the “city’s heart” in 40 wonderfully diverse artworks (representational, picturesque, impressionist, modernist) from c.1800 to 1989.

Exhibition curator Martin Wale spent 17 years designing exhibitions for the State Library, and turned his artist’s eye to the State Library’s amazing pictures collection to create this must-see show. The centrepiece in the show is Herbert Edward Badham’s The Swimming Enclosure (1941) which has not been exhibited before. The artwork captures the joy of Sydneysiders revelling in the Harbour, and the intimacy between the residents and water plus the nostalgic presence of the original shark net (since
replaced with a floating net).

One of the surprising artworks Martin discovered in the Library’s collections is Robert Emerson Curtis’s Circular Quay (1966), a modernist pastel depicting an almost futuristic metropolis. Pilford Fletcher Watson’s Bottle and Glass Rocks, Vaucluse before bombardment (1887) was selected for its quirkiness, with an almost comical treatment of the seagulls. According to local legend the unusual rocks formations (resembling a bottle and glass) were once used as a target for gunnery practice by crew aboard passing naval ships.

Also, as the Harbour Bridge celebrated its 75th anniversary in March 2007, exhibition visitors will appreciate a selection of artworks depicting the Bridge from various perspectives.

“The true joy of these images is the journeys they inspire you to take,” says Martin. “The figurative journey into their hidden stories and the physical journey around the coves and headlands which fringe this magnificent harbour.”

Sydney Harbour: Seldom Scene is a free exhibition in the State Library’s Picture Gallery running until 10 June 2007.