Sylvia Martin has spent decades writing about women who lived in the early part of the 20th century. Find out how a photograph sparked the inspiration for the subject of her latest biography Double Act.

Discover the decades-long, remarkable efforts of the Papunya community to record language and culture and keep it alive.

Artist Sharon Peoples, and the Friends of the National Library, presented a concertina book workshop for adults.

Dr Sylvia Martin

Award winning animators and artists Eleanor & Giovanni presented a workshop for children based on their Enlighten Festival 2026 illumination The Page Turner, created for the National Library.

Ann Stephen and ADS Donaldson

Explore 2 different examples of artistic responses to the Second World War. 

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.

The Deane Collection features 70 original caricatures and cartoons of federal politicians from 1915 to 1925, assembled by public servant and arts patron Percy Deane.

Oral history recordings by Barbara Blackman, mostly of Australian painters, sculptors, potters and others concerned with the visual arts.

Extensive personal papers and about 200 books and serials mostly relating to Chinese art but also including some works on Chinese history, language and literature and reprints of early travels. 

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