Adelaide report

Lee Hayes is looking thoughtfully at the three single bound copies of Emily Harris’s New Zealand Flowers, Berries and Ferns in the Barr Smith Library at the University of Adelaide. We can see that the dark blue leather of the original binding has been cut out and stuck on to cloth-bound boards that don’t quite Read More…

Sydney Report

‘It’s beautiful!’ Sue Needham is looking at the first plate of her great-great-aunt Emily Harris’s hand-coloured New Zealand Flowers, Berries and Ferns at the Mitchell Library in Sydney. She hasn’t seen the books before. The rich yellows of Ranunculus pinguis, the native buttercup, leap from the page. ‘And look how carefully she’s modelled those leaves,’ Read More…

Edwin’s sketches of Nelson

Edwin Harris sketched his Nelson environs for over thirty years after settling there with his family in 1861. Nelson Provincial Museum holds a number of Edwin’s oil and watercolour landscapes, and Harris descendants hold two sketchbooks likely to contain studies for some of his finished paintings. We present below a preview of pages from the Read More…