The Vintage Cosmonaut: An Edwardian Summer: not droll doings at all!

Currently on display at the Museum of Sydney is the fabulous exhibition An Edwardian Summer, which offers a seductive and positively charming slice of the upper crust life in Sydney at the turn of the 20th century. I say chaps it’s jolly good!

With the photography of local well-to-do type Arthur Wigram Allen at its heart, the exhibition weaves the photographic image with fashion, furnishings, art, ephemera, and toys - all set to send you into an Edwardian spin.

I visited the exhibition in early January and really enjoyed it - as did a bevy of other visitors tromping along behind me. I had to pull out of their stream and go back to the start just to get a bit of elbowroom. My advice: avoid the post-lunch rush. By 3pm sanity returns and you should comfortably be able to take it in without pressure of the move-it-along crowd.

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Those already familiar with the period will know very well that the first Edwardian summer in Australia kicked off with the passing of Queen Victoria and the subsequent coronation of her son Edward in January 1901. This date coincided with another major event down-under, yes you guessed it, the federation of the nation! Hip Hip Hurrah! [Or maybe not... did anyone else watch episode 1 of Immigration nation re: white Australia policy? A future post perhaps.]

Between the exhibition's "nationhood / new monarch" beginning and "death of the king / the modern era" closure, visitors are taken on a visual journey through the fascinations and leisure’s of the privileged Edwardian Sydney-siders, the Allens. Images are presented in thematic groupings including family and friends, childhood, the beach, the bush, interior scenes, harbour life, and country outings. Concise and thoughtfully placed exhibition texts add depth and context, outlining for instance the role conceptions of "the bush” played in the forming of an Australian cultural identity.

Edwardian women on the edge and out on a limb

Female photographers at work in the bush in the Blue Mountains

WHAT KIND OF A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION IS THIS?

Assuming this was going to be a straight-up photographic exhibition the discovery that other materials and objects had been included was a pleasant surprise. The colour and style of the period were really brought to life by these additions.

Initially I was a teeny bit disappointed to find most of images on display were reproductions until I quickly realised Allen’s photographs are bound their in original albums, so this criticism is groundless. If I’d bothered to read up on the show before hand I also would have known this. With reproductions a necessity, the display of several albums in deskcases became a bonus and all forgiven. Opened to select pages, they offered up their gems - the photographs of the children in pantomime costumes were a stand out, dressed as they were, a motley crew of characters some looking like shrunken adults.

Such curatorial choices, not forgetting to mention the hysterical and bizarre images of Blue Bird, along with those that subtly trace of the growing beauty of Allen’s daughter Joyce, in my mind hint at the insightful and entertaining work of Alan Davies (Curator of Photography, State Library of New South Wales) who I understand collaborated with Allen family members on the show. What do you think?
Overall the accessibility and interpretation the exhibition offers in regards to these photographic albums is clever, creative and inspiring.

''Yaralla'. A momentary stop so the children and 'Blue Bird' could be photographed. The 'Piece de Resistance' of the afternoon, Montague Stephen impersonating 'The Blue Bird' 1 June 1912' - Arthur Wigram Allen inscription

The Blue Bird. 'Piece de resistance' indeed. I only wish I could have capture the full image. There was a giant cage on the right which added to the delightful lunacy. I've always said if I ever go through the indignity of a wedding may it be dressed as a chicken (guests included). Oh how his image spoke to me.


The coming of age and beauty Arthur Wigram Allen's daughter Joyce at various ages

ME = BEGGAR, ARTHUR WIGRAM ALLEN = CHOOSER

The inclusion of interactive digital slideshows that allow you to navigate your way in a simple fashion through additional images from the albums. It's not the same as leafing through an album but sweet just the same. And beggars can't be choosers. Arthur Allen was clearly a very rich man, a chooser. As were his extended family. A slideshow of images of house interiors and exteriors in the exhibition reveal the extent of the collective family's real estate holdings. A slew of mansions that made me gulp: ‘Merioola’ and ‘Harll’ at Woollahra (‘Merioola’ featuring a ballroom, and dining room just for afternoon tea); ‘Carrara’ at Rose Bay, ‘Etham’ at Darling Point, ‘Banksia’ at Double Bay. I’m not including the country properties. You’ll have to pardon me twitchin’ hands and waterin’ eyes but my family's escape from the factory was only a recent one m'Lord (*tugs cap, embarrassed*). Let's just say it was painfully clear to me that in terms of the board game of Monopoly the Allens had it WON. Envious? A little. On the upside Allen's photographic fetish has recorded for prosperity many of these now demolished architectural jewels.

Fine mansions, horse and carriages, motorcars, boats, and cameras aside, the images of Allen’s children with their Christmas cornucopia suggested that the Edwardian period was where all Christmas fantasies began. The images of the children with their yuletide bounty were intriguingly sweet while verging on the obscene.There I'd been thinking that in the Christmas of the past all you got was an orange in a sock. Or maybe just a sock. Not so. Or not so for the a lucky few.

Seeing all this one couldn't help but wonder what are the poor people doing? The working classes? Well, cleaning, scraping and slaving for people like the Allens I dare say not that you’ll see them here. OK, so I can understand they wouldn’t have been an obvious subject for Allen. Even today, with the ease and low cost nature of digital photography, how often do you photograph your local supermarket checkout person, garbage collector, bus driver or cleaner (if you’re fortunate enough to have one)? Not very often I bet. Yet, if there was anything to dislike about the exhibition, it was that the wealth and privilege Allen recorded was presented as so everyday, so normalized. Normal for the Allens it may have been but for everyone else?? That the wealth and power the Allens enjoyed was the result of social imbalance was never really articulated. I realise it wasn't the point of the show, but just the same...

Nevertheless, the working classes make themselves felt in these images even with their very absence. You just know those fine ladies in their netted veiled hats hadn’t lugged all that silverware, linen and furniture to set up the dining table for their four star picnic in the national park. You just know…

But class gripes aside, one of the simplest and more universal joys this exhibition offered, beholding the vividness of life of all these wonderful old characters – the Joyces, Ethels, Marcias, Dorothys, Mollys and Nells, the Walters, Muriels, Harrys, and my favourite, the Valentines, of the world. Names that for too easily conjure old age and grannies passed. Through this exhibition we see them once more, reminding us so powerfully of their radiant, shining, gorgeous selves, as they were, drenched in the magic of those Edwardian summers. Here's to you all Hip Hip Hurrah!

OTHER FAVOURITE THINGS:

Edwardian fonts (my love has been re-ignited, that's my drool on the ephemera deskcases folks)

Edwardian interiors: relatively informal, light, blending copper furnishings with potted palms and ferns, white joinery. Sounds like a hideous 70s-80s set but the additional of Art Nouveau details brings it all together