Viewing a special collections display at the QAGOMA Research Library / View full image
Delve into our special collections and resources which range from artist files, images and letters to rare books, LP records and databases.
Fluxus ephemera / Collection: QAGOMA Research Library / View full image
Explore the extensive collection of files on artists that contain small catalogues, invitations, press clippings and other ephemeral resources. We invite artists to contact us to add material to their files. Find out if an artist is represented in the QAGOMA Collection via Collection Search.
Selection of the Art Pal submissions / View full image
During August 2020, at what was the beginning of the COVID-19 global pandemic, QAGOMA invited audiences to share their experience of this significant moment in time. Reflecting on the role that art and creativity plays in our lives during times of stress and change, over 300 people submitted a postcard to contribute to the Art Pal Postcard archive. Read more or, to access this collection, search the online database. Contact us for an appointment to view the physical archive.
Artist Russell Drysdale and Laurie Thomas, Director, Queensland Art Gallery, assessing entries in the 1961 HC Richards Prize, Queensland Art Gallery / Collection: QAGOMA Research Library / Image courtesy: The Courier Mail / View full image
Search this database to find out about artists and art prize exhibitions in Brisbane from 1950 to 1975, a period when art prizes flourished. The database was compiled by former QAGOMA curator, Glenn R. Cooke as research for his exhibition and publication A Time Remembered: Art in Brisbane 1950 to 1975 (QAG, 1995). Search the online database.
Dear Queensland / View full image
Dear Queensland is an online archive of letters and visual responses from Queensland’s LGBTIQA+ communities reflecting on their challenges and triumphs. The collection was gathered from February to July 2022, when QAGOMA and artist Shannon Novak opened their virtual letter box to LGBTIQA+ Queenslanders. The responses collected explore joy, heartbreak and hopes for the future, and document some important and often untold histories of Queensland. Read more or, to access this collection, visit the Dear Queensland website
Robert Walker, Australia 1922–2007 / Ian Fairweather (from ‘Hut’ series) 1966 / Gelatin silver photograph on paper / 34 x 25.6cm (comp., sight) / Gift of Saskia Havekes and Louise Havekes-Walker in memory of Robert Walker through the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation 2021. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Robert Walker/Copyright Agency / View full image
Donated by the Estate of Marion Smith through the QAGOMA Foundation, this archive of letters and scrapbooks contains correspondence between Ian Fairweather and Marion Smith (1938–2008), a stenographer who worked at the University of Queensland in the early 1960s. She was one of several who assisted with typing Fairweather’s translations of Chinese tales published as The Drunken Buddha (1965). Read a selection of these letters in Ian Fairweather: A Life in Letters (2019), edited by Claire Roberts and John Thompson. To access this archive, contact us for an appointment. Read more.
Andy Warhol, 1928–87 / Interview magazine / Selected issues, New York / Sophie Papas Collection, donated to the QAGOMA Research Library under the Cultural Gifts Program in memory of Sophie Papas, April 2009 / Collection: QAGOMA Research Library / View full image
Established by Andy Warhol in October 1969, Interview magazine gradually morphed from an underground newsletter to a large-format publication involving many talented photographers, editors and authors. The collection of almost 200 Interview magazines from 1973 to 1998 was donated in memory of Sophie Papas in 2009 under the Cultural Gifts Program. To access this collection, search the online catalogue or contact us for an appointment. Read more
Cover of Minotaure, Surrealist magazine from the James C. Sourris AM Collection / Collection: Research Library / View full image
This rare book collection, purchased with funds from James C. Sourris AM through the QAGOMA Foundation in 2011, has two distinct areas of focus: Surrealist art and the work of Henri Matisse (1869–1954). The Surrealism collection includes original manifestos, books, magazines, and exhibition catalogues dating from 1920 to 1965. Minotaure, one of the most iconic of the surrealist periodicals with its impressive list of contributors, is a particular highlight. The Matisse holdings include rare and important books, journals and exhibition catalogues dating from 1936 to 1956. To access this collection, search the online catalogue or contact us for an appointment.
Jon Molvig, Australia 1923-70 / Self portrait 1956 / Oil on composition board / 142.3 x 114.3 cm / Gift of the National Gallery Society of Queensland 1958 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © QAGOMA / View full image
Acclaimed Australian artist Jon Molvig (1923–70) spent the greater part of his productive life in Brisbane, Queensland, where he dominated the art scene into the late 1960s. Search Molvig’s artworks using this database compiled by former QAGOMA curator, Glenn R. Cooke.
Charles Blackman, Australia b.1928 / Buderim Mt Sketchbook: Civilisation versus Eden 1984 / Full (faux) black leather sketchbook with gilt borders and red endpapers / 1 v.; ill. (some col.) / Gift of the Josephine Ulrich and Win Schubert Foundation for the Arts through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2013. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program / Collection: QAGOMA Research Library / © Charles Raymond Blackman/Copyright Agency / View full image
Win Schubert AO (1938–2017) established Art Galleries Schubert in 1985 on the Gold Coast, Queensland that operated until 2009. An extensive collection of limited-edition Australian art books, exhibition catalogues and journals was a gift of the Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Foundation for the Arts through the QAGOMA Foundation in 2013, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program. One of the many highlights is Charles Blackman’s original leather-bound sketchbook, Buderim Mt Sketchbook: Civilisation versus Eden (1984). Read more about the sketchbook. Search the online catalogue or contact us .
Cover of Sali Herman exhibition catalogue, David Jones Art Gallery, Sydney, from the Patrick Corrigan AM Collection / Collection: QAGOMA Research Library / View full image
This collection of Australian exhibition catalogues is a unique group of items accumulated over more than three decades and generously donated to the Library through the QAGOMA Foundation by the avid collector and philanthropist, Patrick Corrigan AM. Comprising some 800 catalogues, invitations and journals, the collection spans nearly 120 years, beginning with the famous 1898 exhibition of Australian art held at Grafton Galleries in London. Search the online catalogue or contact us.
'Yeo Swee Hong’ frog logo sent by Robert MacPherson (1937-2021) to Peter Tyndall / Collection: QAGOMA Research Library / © The artists / View full image
This important archive is the result of 35 years of exchange between these two celebrated Australian artists. Donated to the QAGOMA Research Library in 2014 by Peter Tyndall, it consists of almost 13 000 items of correspondence from Robert MacPherson (1937–2021). Much of the collection comprises envelopes containing newspaper and magazine pages related to frogs, axes or other items of MacPherson’s thematic interest or the artists’ shared interests and annotated by MacPherson with text calligraphy. One of the highlights is MacPherson’s first gift to Tyndall, a masonic box that has a winged motif decorating the outside and inside is a string of feathers meant to be viewed at eye level as the strings arise. Search the online catalogue or contact us for an appointment. Read more
R. Ian Lloyd, Canada/Australia b.1953 / Rosella Namok in her studio in Cairns, Queensland, Australia at 10:44am on May 19th, 2005 2005, printed 2009 / Giclée print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Ultra Smooth archival paper / 35.3 x 53.1cm (comp.) / Gift of the artist through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2010. Donated through the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © R. Ian Lloyd / View full image
Discover past regional exhibitions from 2000 to 2005 that showcase Queensland arts and culture created with regional Queensland partners and supported by an Arts Queensland Digital Media Grant. The online exhibitions feature Conrad Martens, the Lady Woodcarvers of Rockhampton, the restoration of the See Poy portraits, Ken Thaiday, William Robinson and contemporary artists in ‘Fortitude’.
Barbara Kruger, United States b.1945 (cover artwork) / Consolidated / Business of punishment / London Records, 1994 / Two vinyl LP records, 33 1/3 rpm; in paper sleeves and cardboard cover; 31.5 x 31.5cm / Gift of Scott Redford 2008–14 / Collection: QAGOMA Research Library / © 1994 London Records USA / View full image
Explore Australian contemporary artist and collector Scott Redford’s collection of vinyl records, music-related ephemera, posters, books, journals and artists’ multiples held in the Library as the result of generous gifts by the artist, that includes a significant donation in 2022. Born in 1962 and exhibiting since the 1980s, Redford’s career overlaps the golden age of the vinyl record, its history and its popular resurgence over the last two decades. The objects gifted by Redford capture and reflect on aspects of popular music, culture and graphic design. Search the online catalogue or contact us. Read more
School house, Hermannsburg Mission, 1947 / Photograph: EW Searle / Oswald A Wallent Collection / Collection: QAGOMA Research Library / View full image
The Oswald A Wallent Collection, assembled by Oswald Wallent during his years at the Hermannsburg Mission, near Alice Springs, offers a glimpse of the mid 1940s at the mission where the famous landscape painter Albert Namatjira (1902–59) spent most of his life. The various missionaries, who served at the Finke River Mission, as it was known, were active in recording and learning the languages of the Western Aranda (Arrernte) people. Examples in the Wallent Collection include a 1904 book of stories from the Bible and hymns and prayers translated into Arrernte by Carl Strehlow, mission superintendent from 1894 to 1922. The collection also includes correspondence, photographs, books, exhibition catalogues, children’s drawings and newspaper clippings.
Cultural Warning: This collection may include the names and images of deceased persons as well as content that may be culturally sensitive or considered inappropriate today. To access, contact us for an appointment.
Vida Lahey (1882–1968) is one of Queensland's best loved artists, recognised as much for her work in promoting art and art education in Queensland as for her own paintings. Her first known paintings date from 1902. She studied at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School in Melbourne under Frederick McCubbin and Bernard Hall, and privately with Walter Withers. She also studied in Europe, but always returned to Brisbane where she lived and painted for most of her life. Search Lahey’s artworks using this database compiled by former QAGOMA curator, Glenn R. Cooke.