Publications
All Sydney University Museum publications are now available for purchase on abebooks.com
Visit our online bookstore to browse all publications and catalogues from the Macelay Museum, Nicholson Museum, University Art Gallery.
Purchase of these titles can also be made in person at our museum galleries.
Latest Publications
Aphrodite's Island: Australian Archaeologists in Cyprus
Dr Craig Barker
This lavishly illustrated catalogue accompanies the Nicholson Museum exhibition of the same name, and presents selected highlights from the Nicholson Museum’s extensive collection of Cypriot artefacts, from the Early Bronze Age to the Middle Ages.
2013 marks the centenary of the birth of Professor James Stewart, who excavated on the island before and after the Second World War and developed the Nicholson Museum’s collection, but the legacy of Australian archaeological investigations on the island continues today. Fieldwork projects by Australian universities continue, including the Nicholson Museum sponsored excavations at Nea Paphos; the Hellenistic-Roman capital of the island. This catalogue celebrates the Cypriot archaeological collections of the Nicholson Museum, and explore the stories of the Australian researchers who have investigated the island’s history.
Featuring essays on Cypriot archaeology and art by Craig Barker, Judith Powell, Jenny Webb, Robert Merrillees, Agata Mvra-Montoya, Ina Kenrberg, Diana Wood Conroy and an introduction by the President of Cyprus, Demetris Christofias.
Price $19.95 (plus postage if order is to be mailed)
74 pages, soft cover.
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J.W. Power Paysage (Landscape) 1934 oil on linen 50.9 x 66.3 cm JW Power collection, The University of Sydney, managed by Museum of Contemporary Art
J.W. Power Abstraction-Création Paris 1934
A.D.S. Donaldson & Anne Stephen
This illustrated book was produced in conjunction with a major exhibition J.W. Power Abstraction-Création Paris 1934 on display at the University of Sydney Art Gallery from the 24 September 2012 - 25 January 2013. The culmination of many years of research and published by the Power Institute, this catalogue is a landmark publication complete with new archival scholarship and a major essay by Gladys Fabre, the leading authority on the Abstraction-Création artists association, published for the first time in English.
Price $39.95 (plus postage if order is to be mailed)
116 pages, hardback.
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50 Objects 50 Stories: Extraordinary Curiosities from the Nicholson Museum
Michael Turner (photography Rowan Conroy)
50 Objects 50 Stories: Extraordinary Curiosities from the Nicholson Museum is the book of the Nicholson Museum exhibition 50 Objects 50 Stories and of the ABCNews24 TV series Extraordinary Curiosities.
It is not about the most important, or the most beautiful things in the Nicholson Museum. It is about objects with a story to tell. Beginning in 1860 with antiquities from the original donation of Sir Charles Nicholson, it journeys through to the present day. Along the way, the stories introduce us to a cast of characters, curators and collectors who have helped shape the museum and its collection.
Sir Charles Nicholson, founder of the museum, a man of dramatically humble origins (whose story is told), newspaper reporter Edward Reeve, the museum’s first curator (1860-1889 in three terms), Enoch Powell, eminent Greek scholar, later radical English right-wing politician (curator 1938-39) and James Stewart, Cypriot archaeologist, prisoner of war and cat lover (curator 1954-1962). There are adventurous women such as Agatha Christie and the intrepid Mary Woodhouse. There are famous archaeologists Sir Austen Henry Layard, Sir Henry Wellcome, Sir Flinders Petrie, Vere Gordon Childe, Dame Kathleen Kenyon, Sir Max Mallowan, Sir Mortimer Wheeler and some pretty dreadful ones like Luigi Palma di Cesnola. And there are famous men and women Sir William Hamilton and his scandalous wife Emma, Thomas Hope, Orson Welles and D.H. Lawrence. All have a part to play as these wonderful stories unfold.
Price $29.95 (plus postage if order is to be mailed)
130 pages, hardback.
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Alexander Macleay from Sydney to Scotland
Derelie Cherry
This is a long-overdue biography of Alexander Macleay, the collector of the tens of thousands of insects that form the foundation of the Macleay Museum's collections. Cherry's biography charts Alexanders work in Scotland and England before his arrival in Australia as Colonial Secretary in 1826. It follows his role as a father of 11 (six children died in England) his progress as a public benefactor, his work in politics (as well as Colonial Secretary he was the first Speaker in the NSW Legislative Council) and his curiosity and passion for knowledge about the natural world.
Price: $50.00 (plus postage if order is to be mailed)
450 pages, soft cover.
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Into the Light: 150 years of cultural treasures at the University of Sydney
Introduction by D. Malouf; essays by J. Philp, A. Stephen and M. Turner
The University of Sydney has some of the largest and richest cultural heritage collections of any university in the nation. More than 700 000 works are held in the university’s Macleay Museum, Nicholson Museum and University Art Collection. With collections dating from antiquity to the modern age, from every continent and including cultural, artistic, scientific, and natural materials, they form a significant part of the national heritage.
Into the Light is published on the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the Nicholson Museum, the first university museum in Australia. Richly illustrated, with essays and captions written by curatorial staff and experts in their fields, Into the Light provides a glimpse into those collection and some of the ways they interconnect across disciplinary boundaries. The book includes an introduction by David Malouf and more than a hundred highlights of the collections, photographed by Michael Myers.
Price $49.95 (plus postage if order is to be mailed)
175 pages, soft cover.
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University Art Gallery
Narelle Jubelin: Vision in Motion
Contributors: Jacky Redgate, Luke Parker and Ann Stephen
This book surveys three decades of Sydney artist Narelle Jubelin’s work, from her needlework panorama of colonial monuments to videos tracing the ways the skyline has been redrawn by modernism in the twentieth century. It reveals her extended dialogue with modernist architecture and the built environment, and includes a pinhole-camera photo-essay by artist Jacky Redgate.
Price $20.00 (plus postage if order is to be mailed)
100 pages, hardback.
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NICHOLSON MUSEUM
Exposed: Photography and the Classical Nude
M. Turner, with contributions from A.J.L. Blanshard, A. Carden-Coyne, and W.K. Zewadski
Exposed: Photography and the Classical Nude is a celebration of the naked human body in photography, and of the influence of the Classical ideal of Ancient Greece and Rome on that art form. Ranging from the beautiful to the bizarre, from the provocative to the thought provoking, it brings together 98 photographs from 61 photographers including Fox Talbot, Muybridge, von Gloeden, Riefenstahl, Cartier-Bresson, Chim, Brassai, Doisneau, List and Dupain.
Price AUD $29.95 (plus postage if order is to be mailed)
141 pages, hard back.
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Beauty and Betrayal: ancient and neo-classical jewellery
E. Bollen, with contributions from M. Turner and MM. Jackson
Sydney 2010
Exhibition catalogue. 75 pages, full colour, p/b
Jewellery can be a potent symbol of protection or of power. It can speak of an individual’s status, wealth, taste, education, and international connections. Or it can be desired or worn simply because it is beautiful. But there is a different side to jewellery that is made apparent in Greek myths: its beauty can often lead to betrayal. Desire for jewellery blinded Eriphyle to her duty to protect her husband, Jason once in possession of the Golden Fleece abandoned the woman who had helped him procure it, and Helen and Paris’ love based on beauty and desire brought war and devastation to thousands.
Collected together in this exhibition and catalogue are over 70 objects from the Nicholson Museum, other Australian university museums and public and private collections. Each piece displays the techniques of the jeweller, indicates the varied purpose of adornments and above all captures the ageless appeal of jewellery.
Price $20.00 (plus postage if order is to be mailed)
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Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. The Nicholson Museum, The University of Sydney. The Red Figure Pottery of Apulia
A. Cambitoglou and M. Turner
Sydney 2008
Full colour, h/b
New Price AUD $100.00*
This, the first Australian volume of the Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum brings together 86 whole pots and fragments from the collection of Apulian red figure pottery in the Nicholson Museum at the University of Sydney. This volume is written by Alexander Cambitoglou, Director of the Australian Archaeological Insititute at Athens, and Michael Turner, Senior Curator of the Museum.
Limited edition of 500 copies
105 Full Colour Plates
Includes a CD of all plates and outline drawings
Price AUD $100.00* (plus postage if order is to be mailed)
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Ancient Voices - Modern Echoes: Theatre in the Greek World. Exhibition Catalogue
J.R. Green, F. Muecke, K.N. Sowada, M. Turner and E. Bachmann
Sydney, 2003
88 pages, full colour, p/b
This Catalogue presents the 45 objects on display in the Nicholson Museum's exhibition, 'Ancient Voices - Modern Echoes: Theatre in the Greek World'. The pieces include Attic and South Italian painted vases, terracotta figurines and bronze statuettes, some of which have never been published before. The catalogue is prefaced with three essays by Professor J.R. Green and F. Muecke on ancient theatre and the theatre site at Nea Paphos, Cyprus.
ISBN 0-909602-16-6
Price AUD$25.00 (plus postage if order is to be mailed)
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MACLEAY MUSEUM
Museum by Robyn Stacey and Ashley Hay
A new book featuring over 100 stunning full-page images from one of Australia's leading photographers, accompanied by an engaging history from an acclaimed essayist and author.
Click here for further information and book order form.
A Fragile Balance: The Extraordinary Story of Australian Marsupials
Written by the University of Sydney's Professor Chris Dickman this book tells the extraordinary story of Australian marsupials and their precarious state in an ever-worsening environment. A Fragile Balance takes an intimate look at 150 marsupials, many uncommonly heard of, and includes intricate detailed illustrations by highly awarded and respected natural history artist Rosemary Woodford Ganf.
A Fragile Balance: The Extraordinary Story of Australian Marsupials is published by Craftsman House, an imprint of Thames & Hudson ($85). The foreword to A Fragile Balance is written by renowned scientist and author Tim Flannery. Release date: December, 2007.
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Collected: 150 years of Aboriginal art and artifacts at the Macleay Museum
By Susie Davies, (with essay by Rose Stack) Published by University of Sydney, 2002
Softcover 108 pages
Collected is the first book to be published on the Macleay Museum’s important holdings of Australian Aboriginal art and artifacts. The book comprises 108 full colour plates, featuring some of Australia’s oldest bark paintings as well as shields, clubs, bags and body ornaments from the Macleay Museum’s historic collections. These artifacts, most of them collected in the second half of the nineteenth century, are show cased along with others collected in the twentieth century. These include a significant collection of bark paintings, pearl shell ornaments and a unique Wandjina figure. Supplements by about 30 historic photographs mainly from the Museum’s extensive collections, Collected highlights the rich artistic tradition of Aboriginal Australians.
Collected will be an essential resource for museum curators, historians, anthropologists, collectors and all those interested in the rich material culture and artistic traditions of Aboriginal Australians.
$60.00 + postage and handling
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Mr. Macleay's Celebrated Cabinet
ed. Peter Stanbury and Julian Holland
A history of the Macleay Museum and the Macleay Family over 200 years. As well as celebrating the Museum's 100 year presence at the University of Sydney, the book provides an insight into the scientific circles of Regency England and Victorian Sydney. (8 authors)
Published by the Macleay Museum, 1988. Pp 171, 24x18 cm.
Paperback $5.00 (was $26.95)
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South Pacific Islands
edited by Peter Stanbury and Lydia Bushell
Comprises 10 chapters by experts in their fields including European exploration, land forms, botany, languages, arts, whaling, crops and farming, politics and independence.
Published by the Macleay Museum, 1984. Pp, 24x18 cm.
Paperback $5.00 (was $10.95)
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