Learn about the treatment work our conservators have recently done on thepattern plates for the supplement to The Birds of Australia by John Gould.

The National Library has a large collection of sculptures built into and around the building, and beautiful tapestries hanging in our foyer.

The Main Reading Room houses a collection of sculptures and paintings inspired by Indigenous stories of the Australian landscape.

The Special Collections Reading Room houses art relating to Australian history and culture in the post-colonial era, focusing on modern Australian people and places.

Christine Morton-Evans

Drawings, sketches, plans and photographs of Australian colonial architecture, ancient buildings from China and Greece, furnature designs and sketches for a proposed "ideal city" of Kurrajong.

919 watercolours and gouaches of flowers and birds of Australia and Papua New Guinea painted 1870-1920, plus a small quantity of personal papers.

More than 1,000 comics, mostly published in Australia and including some overseas titles reprinted in Australia, from the 1940s to 1970s, as well as fanzines and personal papers.

911 water colours by Adam Forster of Australian flowers, painted between 1916 and 1927.

Papers including letters, newspaper cuttings, published caricatures, original cartoons, letters and literary manuscripts, mostly related to Australian and New Zealander writers, journalists, composers and artists.

Ten signed stencil prints by Pablo Picasso. 54 sketchbooks of John Power, a small group of personal papers of Power, and 262 books relating to art and architecture.

715 Chinese and Japanese books. Most date from the period 1911-1940, but there are some much earlier works. The main subject areas are Chinese art, epigraphy, archaeology and early history of the Chinese script. Other subjects include classical writings, Buddhism and Taoism, myths and legends.