RARE BOOKS • MANUSCRIPTS • PAINTINGS • PRINTS • RARE BOOKS • MANUSCRIPTS • PAINTINGS • PRINTS HORDERN HOUSE HORDERN HOUSE 77 VICTORIA ST POTTS POINT SYDNEY NSW 2011 AUSTRALIA +612 9356 4411 www.hordern.com JULY 2011 Sydney Printers before 1860 chiefly from the Robert Edwards library.
[email protected] Hordern House recently received the wonderful library of Dr Robert Edwards AO, and over the next year or two we will be offering the library for sale. Bob is one of the great figures of Australian cultural history, at different times working as a leading anthropologist, a central figure in the study of indigenous art, a museum director and a driving force behind many of the international blockbuster art shows to travel to Australia. His early training as an anthropologist saw him doing fieldwork in remote Australia, and led to him becoming a museum curator in the 1960s and 70s. He was the founding director of the Australia Council’s Aboriginal Arts Board, perhaps most famous for its support of the Papunya Tula artists. He was the Director of the Museum of Victoria from 1984-90, the founding chairman of the National Museum of Australia and the founding chairman of the National Portrait Gallery. He has also for many years been the chief executive of Art Exhibitions Australia which brought to Australia significant exhibitions, including the Entombed Warriors from China (1982), Claude Monet (1985), Van Gogh (1993) and Rembrandt (1997). Bob is an ardent bibliophile, and his Library reflects the discerning taste of a knowledgeable and educated collector. Some books are of such rarity that they are known in only a handful of copies, and his collection embraces early Australian printing, early works on the Australian Aborigines, the major early voyage accounts, as well as works on early settlement and inland exploration.