Canberra & the Garangula Gallery: Art and Literature

Day 1: Tuesday 19 August: Braddon, Canberra – Forrest – Braddon, Canberra

• Meeting Point: Avenue Hotel, Canberra. In hotel foyer at 10:30am
• Tuggeranong Homestead: Tour & Welcome Lunch
• Lecture: Influence and Innovation: The Berggruen Collection and Modernism in Australia by David Henderson
• Manning Clark House, Forrest

Meeting Point: 10:30am in foyer of the Avenue Hotel. Please meet your group leaders in the foyer of the hotel.

Our first visit and welcome lunch will be held at the heritage-listed and rural Tuggeranong Homestead. War historian Dr Charles Bean and his staff occupied the homestead from 1919 to 1925 and there worked on the daunting task of writing the official history of Australia’s involvement in WWI.

Tuggeranong will be the setting for an illustrated lecture by David Henderson, introducing the major new exhibition ‘Cézanne to Giacometti: Highlights from Museum Berggruen / Neue Nationalgalerie’ that we visit tomorrow at the National Gallery of Australia.

From the time the first art schools were established in Australia in the late 19th century until the post-war period, long distances meant that a significant local awareness of the new art movements emerging from the studios of Europe did not exist until years after their genesis. The history of Australian art in the first half of the 20th century is largely the story of this delayed encounter between innovations arriving from abroad and a still embryonic sense of national identity. The exhibition from the Berggruen Museum at the NGA recreates something of this relationship of influence by juxtaposing works by pioneers of Australian modernism such as Russell Drysdale and Grace Cossington-Smith against those of their illustrious European contemporaries. Heinz Berggruen, a German-Jewish collector who settled in Paris after World War II amassed an exceptional collection of works by some of the leading figures of 20th century art, and the exhibition also presents an opportunity to reflect on the importance of the of the web of creative dialogue that existed between figures such as Picasso, Matisse, Klee, Giacometti and Cézanne.

We end the day with a private tour of the former residence of Manning Clark and his wife, Dymphna, which was designed by architect and writer, Robin Boyd in 1952. It was here that the Clarks hosted such luminaries as Gough Whitlam and Patrick White. They remained friends with Boyd until his death in 1971. The living room includes the piano Manning Clark played during breaks from writing his six-volume History of Australia, art works by John Perceval, and a portrait of Dymphna by Pamela Houstein. In the sitting room hangs a print of Arthur Boyd’s 1972 portrait of Manning Clark (the original is on loan to the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra), and the floor-to-ceiling library of books in Manning Clark’s study. Today the book collection exceeds 10,000 volumes. There is also Dymphna’s typewriter which she used to work on the Aborigines Treaty Committee (at the invitation of poet Judith Wright), translating pioneering works on Aborigines by German anthropologists, and editing the diaries of Baron von Hugel, an Austrian naturalist who visited Australia in the 1830s.

Afternoon tea will be enjoyed at the Manning Clark House, and we then transfer to our hotel in Braddon. The evening is at leisure.  (Overnight, Canberra) L

Day 2: Wednesday 20 August, Canberra

• National Gallery of Australia: Exhibition ‘Cézanne to Giacometti: Highlights from Museum Berggruen / Neue Nationalgalerie’
• National Library: Private viewing of manuscripts and rare books
• National Library: Treasure Gallery & Exhibition
• National Library: Talk with Chris Hammer
• National Library: Public Lecture by Susannah Fullerton: Jane Austen and Her Legacy – 250 Glorious Years

This morning we visit the exhibition ‘Cézanne to Giacometti: Highlights from Museum Berggruen / Neue Nationalgalerie’ at the National Gallery. There will be time to visit the gallery’s main collections and the sculpture garden before lunch at leisure in the museum café.

The National Library has arranged a special selection from amongst its many literary treasures for our private viewing. 2025 is the 250^th anniversary year of Jane Austen’s birth and the items on display will all be from her era. There will be rare books, a letter penned by Jane Austen, first editions, and items and books by her female contemporaries. Jane Austen was not the only innovator of her time – other women broke boundaries, established new modes of writing, and made their place in literary history. We will see works by Wollstonecraft, Burney, Radcliffe and others. Also on display will be maps of Australia dating from the time of Jane Austen’s birth.

On the ground floor of the National Library is the fabulous Treasures Gallery, which displays significant items relating to Australian literature and history. Books, manuscripts, letters, photographs, paintings and objects are on view in frequently changing exhibitions. There will be time to visit this wonderful gallery.

We are delighted that acclaimed author, Chris Hammer, a leader in ‘Australian noir’, has kindly agreed to join us. For over thirty years Chris was a journalist covering Australian federal politics and international affairs. In Canberra, his roles included chief political correspondent for The Bulletin, current affairs correspondent for SBS’s Dateline, and senior political journalist for The Age. In 2018 he published his debut crime novel, Scrublands, which won the 2019 CWA Dagger New Blood Award for Best Crime Novel. It became an instant best-seller and has been made into a TV drama. This was followed up with Silver (2019), Trust (2020), some non-fiction works and, most recently, The Valley, published in 2024. Chris will talk to us about his writing career, the challenges of writing crime fiction and he will welcome questions from the audience.

The day concludes with a public lecture, presented by Susannah Fullerton, OAM, FRSN, entitled ‘Jane Austen and Her Legacy – 250 Glorious Years’. In 1775 a little girl was born in a small Hampshire village. As a teenager, she began to write stories, little dreaming that one day her writings would be beloved around the world, turned into popular movies and TV adaptations, sequelled, prequelled, adapted in a myriad of ways, and studied in schools and universities globally. Why are her novels so adored, in what ways did she change literary history, where in the world does one find Jane Austen societies, and why do readers go back to her books again and again? (Overnight, Canberra) B

Day 3: Thursday 21 August, Braddon, Canberra – Harden – Canberra Airport

• Private viewing of the Garangula Gallery, Harden
• Transfer to Canberra Airport. Tour ends at 4.00pm. 

This morning, we depart for Harden and stop en route for coffee in the little town of Yass. We enjoy a private viewing of the Garangula Art Gallery, a stunning building located in rural NSW. It houses an important private collection of Aboriginal art, jewels, paintings and artefacts collected over many years by the owners. The Gallery is a unique building of rammed earth, stone, wood and corten steel. Designed by Fender Katsalidis Mirams Architects (Mona, Hobart), its outstanding design and construction have been recognised with significant awards including the 2014 NSW Architecture Awards for Interior Design, the 2014 Blacket Prize, the ACT 2014 Master Builders Project of the Year, and the 2014 Master Builders National Excellence Award for a Commercial/Industrial Construction. The collection housed in the building features the work of many eminent indigenous artists. The art, along with Aboriginal artefacts and traditional crafts, covers most parts of Aboriginal Australia and are strikingly displayed. Also housed in the gallery are fine examples of Australian colonial art, with paintings by Arthur Streeton, Fred Williams, Russell Drysdale and Sidney Nolan, furniture and other curios. Many of the works and other items have been held in private collections for many years and have never been on public display. Garangula’s collection is only occasionally opened to the public so this is a rare opportunity to view this hugely impressive building and its significant contents.

We stop for lunch in Harden, before heading back to Canberra airport, arriving at approximately 4.00pm.

This mini tour offers unique opportunities to visit places rarely open to the general public, view art works never before seen in Australia, enter homes with fascinating literary associations, meet a famous author, and the chance to celebrate a historic literary anniversary with viewings and a lecture. (Overnight, Canberra) BL