Colonial Crafts of Victoria

The grand finale of the Arts Victoria ’78 Crafts Festival of the Victorian Ministry for the Arts is a unique exhibition of 380 craft works from public and private collections throughout the State.

The Colonial Crafts of Victoria Exhibition, sponsored by Conzinc Riotinto of Australia Ltd., opens on November 4 at the Temporary Exhibitions Hall of the National Gallery of Victoria. It runs until January 14, 1979. It includes the crafts of the Aborigines, gold diggers, pioneers and town and metropolitan craftsmen from early settlement to 1921. The works cover the broad areas of trade, domestic and recreational crafts. Many disappearing crafts such as coopering, blacksmithing and tinsmithing will be represented, giving a rare opportunity of seeing these vanishing skills.

Painter/printmaker, Murray Walker, who researched and mounted the exhibition, spent two years travelling and searching throughout Victoria.

‘It is the first time in Australia that folk craft has been detached from solely historic associations and subjected to aesthetic scrutiny’, he said. ‘For too long we have believed that craft is one thing and art another. In fact, there is no distinction. It’s all human expression.’

Mr. Walker describes the collection as a ‘people’s exhibition’, featuring crafts made by people of all ages and from many different backgrounds. The crafts include printing, quilting, banner making, wax modelling, embroidery, engraving, bootmaking, toy making, taxidermy, pottery, model making, jewellery, woodcarving and aboriginal basket making.

Visitors to the exhibition will be able to see and learn from the manual skills which gave Australia a unique tradition and a legacy of ingenuity, improvisation and knowledge of materials.

Research for the exhibition was largely directed towards unknown crafts made from necessity as well as the undervalued trade crafts, instead of precious objects associated with genteel society.

The project was conceived and initially financed by the Crafts Council of Australia. The Ministry for the Arts has been assisted by the Aboriginal Arts Board and the Crafts Board of the Australia Council in the presentation of this exhibition.

Sourced from: Exhibition press release, 13 Oct. 1978