The National Library incorporates major works of art that have become closely associated with the building.

Wendy Cooper

Thanks to a gift from the Susan and Isaac Wakil Foundation, we are digitising performing arts material from our incredible collection.

There’s no business like show business, and this exhibition brings Australia’s performing arts history into the limelight.

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.

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

Module

This resource is aligned with the Australian Curriculum: Visual Arts for Year 9 and 10 students. It adopts an inquiry approach to develop students’ skills as art historians.

For the next 4 weeks, the Library is one of 20 locations hosting contemporary mixed media artworks as part of the Canberra Art Biennial.

We had a special conversation with artist Luke Cornish, celebrating the bold, intricate, and politically charged stencil work of ELK.

Topic

The term ‘cartoon’ is from the Italian cartone, meaning paper. In the middle ages, it was used to refer to sketches that had been drawn for larger works, such as canvases, frescos, tapestries or mosaics. From the nineteenth century, a cartoon came to mean an amusing illustration in newspapers, magazines or online.