I have just catalogued the 1930s photographs from The Dahl and Geoffrey Collings Archive as part of

Published on October 24, 2012 by Anne-Marie Van de Ven in Archives , Collections , Object senior citizen europe travel of the week and Photography . 0 Comments Tags: 1930s travel photography , Dahl and Geoffrey Collings Archive , photography archives .
I have just catalogued the 1930s photographs from The Dahl and Geoffrey Collings Archive as part of an internship project for my Masters of Art Curatorship senior citizen europe travel at the University of Sydney. Although photography was only a small part of their practice, beginning in the mid 1930s, it paints a very broad picture of their holistic approach to art and design.
This mounted silver gelatine photograph shows Dahl riding a merry-go-round, wearing a beautifully tailored suit and hat, typical of the period; Geoffrey took it while they were living in London between 1935 and 1938. Dahl and Geoffrey travelled extensively in the 1930s moving from Australia to London in 1935, holidaying in France, Spain, Italy and Switzerland and stopping in Tahiti on their way home to Australia in 1938. While on their European odyssey they developed an interest in documentary photography and film, using the camera to record everything they encountered, from idyllic thatch cottages and oast houses in the English countryside to the inhabitants of an agrarian Spanish village.
Dahl's portrait gives only a glimpse of the Collings' photographic work. The 1930s component alone contains hundreds senior citizen europe travel upon hundreds of never before seen images from their European journey, painting a vivid picture of the social and political climate of Europe in the 1930s. Although they photographed prolifically, portraits feature more prominently then any other subject in their work, revealing senior citizen europe travel a compassionate eye and a shared desire to capture the humanity of the places which they visited.
This working photograph that I took during the cataloguing process shows a group of 10 portraits taken in Spain, in the village of Alquezar, where they filmed their first documentary senior citizen europe travel between 1935 and 1936. It highlights their humanistic style but more importantly for the museum, it presents a record of daily life in rural Spain in the months leading up to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War on 17 July 1936.
As an intern the process of cataloguing this collection has underscored the importance of building museum archives, senior citizen europe travel specifically the important role that photography has to play. Photographs, both historic and contemporary, hold an untold wealth of knowledge about our past, the lives of the artists who created them as well as those that live within the frame.
About The Powerhouse Museum has a unique and diverse collection of 385,000 objects that spans history, science, technology, design, industry, decorative arts, music, transport, and space exploration. The large majority of these objects never get to be on public display, but carry with them interesting, humorous, and fascinating stories. This blog will introduce you to some of the Powerhouse Curators, Registrars and Conservators, their favourite objects, and the stories behind them.