A luminous purchase

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Sydney Harbour Bridge watercolour

Thirty years ago, the Australian National Maritime Museum became a new landmark on the shores of Sydney Harbour. What better way to celebrate the anniversary than an auction coup that encapsulates a similar aspiration? Importantly, it was the generous contributions of Members to the Foundation that made this purchase possible. By Dr Peter Hobbins.

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01 Sydney Harbour Bridge, Cyril Farey and Graham Dawbarn, 1924. The work was purchased at Newcastle upon Tyne, England, in March 2022. National Maritime Collection 00056191 Supported by the ANMM Foundation. Image Jasmine Poole/ANMM 02 Harold Cazneaux, Arch in the sky, 1930. The museum has a significant collection of photographs taken during the bridge’s construction, such as this one showing the two arches almost at the point of meeting. National Maritime Collection 00054650 IN MARCH 2022, SPIRITED BIDDING saw the museum secure a little-known yet stunning watercolour of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Painted in 1924, this is a work of national significance, embodying the ambitions of a modernising Australia in the aftermath of World War I. A notably maritime work, it features the soon-tobe-scuttled HMAS Australia (I) at right, plus a busy foreground scene of working boats, pleasure craft and international liners passing beneath the distinctive steel arch. Measuring 1.7 metres across, this depiction is signed by Cyril Arthur Farey, acknowledged as Britain’s leading 20th-century architectural perspectivist. Assisted by fellow architect Graham Richard Dawbarn, Farey portrayed the final engineering design of the bridge at the very moment that its construction was guaranteed. It is arguably the first full rendering of a structure that embodied Australia’s rising international stature. The work was almost certainly commissioned by British consulting architects Sir John Burnet & Partners, who designed the bridge’s granite-faced pylons. It only came onto the market in 2022, after nearly a century gracing the headquarters of the engineering firm that undertook the detailed design and erection of the bridge. Based in Middlesbrough, northern England, Dorman Long & Company won the tender for a bridge to connect Millers Point with Sydney’s north shore in March 1924. Completed in 1932, the Sydney Harbour Bridge did more than unite the two sides of the city. It also gave Australians a physical symbol of industrial independence, financial confidence and international recognition. This delightful watercolour will soon be on temporary display in the museum’s Sydney Harbour Gallery. Preliminary curatorial research indicates that this artwork has never been exhibited in Australia. We are now inviting you to give to this year’s end-of-financial-year appeal to raise the funds needed to bring it ‘home’ for the first time in nearly a century.

Dr Peter Hobbins is the museum’s Head of Knowledge. This is a work of national significance, embodying the ambitions of a modernising Australia in the aftermath of World War I

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You can contribute through: Donating on our website at sea.museum/support/donate By direct deposit to: Account name: Australian National Maritime Museum Foundation BSB: 062000 Account: 1616 9309 By contacting the Foundation on 02 9298 3777 and donating over the phone.