Have faith! The Abbey Museum’s new art gallery has a divine edge
The Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology has just opened a new gallery with an inspiring exhibition about the art of world faiths.
When Britain’s Lord Carnarvon asked famed archaeologist Howard Carter what he saw as he first peered into King Tutankhamen’s tomb, Carter replied: “Wonderful things.”
If Carter was alive today, he might say the same thing when gazing at the collection at the Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology near Caboolture, just north of Brisbane.
The museum and its newly opened art gallery and café are treasure troves of art and objects from across the ages. The museum covers prehistorical Europe, the Bronze and Iron ages, the Roman Empire and Medieval Europe up to modern times. The Ancient and Classical world is represented with artefacts from Ancient Egypt (Carter’s patch), Mesopotamia, Israel, Persia, Greece, the Etruscans and ancient Cyprus. There are also collections from the Islamic world, South East Asia, China, Japan and India.
The collections include prehistoric stone and bone tools (there is, mind bogglingly, a 1.2 million-year-old hand axe from Africa), ceramics, glass, stained glass, metalwork, coins, sculptures, carvings, lacquerware, illuminated manuscripts and rare books. The art collection includes Renaissance and Baroque paintings, frescos, watercolours and icons.
The Abbey Museum is also renowned for its annual Abbey Medieval Festival, held in July, which draws visitors from all over Australia. There aren’t too many events you can go to that include jousting.
And now the museum has expanded to include an art gallery showcasing previously unseen paintings and icons dating from the 15th century and sculptures dating back as far as 1000BC.
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The expansion was made possible through State Government and private funding. Tourism Minister Andrew Powell was on hand at the gallery’s opening and to launch its first exhibition, Inspired Images: The Art of Faiths, exploring human history through works inspired by diverse spiritual beliefs.
“The new art gallery means the Abbey Museum can expand its cultural offerings to entice locals and visitors into a world of art and culture throughout the ages,” said Powell, who also highlighted the importance of the museum to the Moreton Bay community and as a tourism asset and attraction for visitors to nearby Bribie Island.
The Queensland Government provided $1.95 million towards the development of the art gallery and café. A rather flash exhibition catalogue was produced with funding from the Gordon Darling Foundation, a supporter of visual arts projects across Australia.
Respected Brisbane art dealer Philip Bacon, who is on the Board of Trustees of that foundation, was at the launch to unveil the catalogue. Bacon is a huge fan of the museum and says it is “a totally unexpected treasure” in South East Queensland and still something of a secret, although the word is getting out. In his opening address Bacon said the museum’s vision was “to enrich peoples’ lives through the stories created from its collection”.
“This catalogue means that this exhibition of a mere 65 of the Abbey’s more than 4000 items will live on as a resource that inspired and enriches people’s hearts and minds,” Bacon told the assembled throng. “Here are 112 pages of overwhelming beauty, full of fantastic images and stories and all for the bargain price of $20.”
More than joust a knight’s tale …
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For the museum’s senior curator, Michael Strong, the collection has been a life’s work. Strong says there are more than 5000 pieces in the collection, with the original collection added to through donations and purchases.
It has taken almost four decades for the Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology to expand the existing archaeological gallery and bring to fruition a new gallery to exhibit paintings, icons and sculptures – among them being major treasures of the collection, says Strong.
“Using a variety of objects – paintings, sculpture, ceramics, stained glass and paper — we have sought to show the diversity and innate power of artworks inspired by various belief systems throughout the centuries,” he says. “The antiquities in this exhibition are extraordinarily varied, covering a time period of over 3000 years from all parts of the world.”
Some of the works in the exhibition are copies of masterpieces. The Abbey Museum’s copy of Raphael’s Bridgewater Madonna is a highlight of the gallery’s opening exhibition and one of the most important copies in the collection. It is the only known version of this famous painting in the Southern Hemisphere. This painting was probably painted by a British artist for a wealthy patron, as it replicates modifications seen in the original when it was acquired by the Duke of Bridgewater in 1798 in London.
The museum’s origins date back 90 years ago when a small religious community founded Britain’s first social history museum at the Abbey Folk Park in New Barnet in suburban London. Their leader was inveterate collector JSM Ward. After surviving the Blitz during World War II and then civil unrest in Cyprus, the group found its way to – of all places – Caboolture, where they built a church and museum to display religious, archaeological and historical treasures.
Now the museum has a new art gallery with funding support from the Queensland Government, Creative Australia Plus 1 and many individual donors. An exhibition tracing the development of faith over the millennia and around the world seems a fitting debut show.
The museum, situated near Caboolture on the road to Bribie Island, is largely funded by the popular annual Abbey Medieval Festival and other educational and immersive events. Through its collection loans and scholarship, the museum is developing an international reputation.
“We’ve just had some visitors from the University of Jerusalem who came to look at our Mesopotamian clay tablets,” Strong says. What did they see? Wonderful things, we’re sure.