This online is an online version of the catalogue for exhibition Garden of the East held at the National Gallery of Australia from 21 Feb 2014 till 22 Jun 2014.
Over my last seven years with the NGA, the gallery's already significant Australian and international collections were built on with an acquisition program of photographs from Southeast Asia.
By the time of this exhibition in Canberra in 2014, the NGA's Asian collection of photographs was nearly eight thousand with in excess of six and a half thousand prints from Indonesia. The Indonesian collection had been enhanced with the acquisition in 2007 of the outstanding Leo Haks collection. This included over 6000 prints including some 3000 in albums and portfolios, dating chiefly date from the late 1860s to the early 1940s.
The Garden of the East exhibition with its catalogue was my final major project as the senior curator of photography at the National Gallery before I left in September 2014.
These online pages contain a sample of the NGA's Indonesian photography collection.
In making this 2025 online version of the catalogue available, we aim to increase the awareness of the NGA's extensive collections and that those collections can accessed for research and future publications. (links below)
Gael Newton AM, August 2025 |
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Silver Streams: photography arrives in Southeast Asia 1840s–1880s, Gael Newton
A Change of Pace: professional, pictorial & personal photography 1890s–1940s, Gael Newton
In Focus:
Personal albums from early twentieth-century Indonesia, Susie Protschky
Colonial machine: the image of industry, Alexander Supartono
Family portraits adrift, Anne O’Hehir
Close-ups:
Kassian Céphas, a self-made man, Matt Cox
Herman Salzwedel, antiquity and the camera, Susie Protschky
Ohannes Kurkdjian’s duality, Vigen Galstyan
George Lewis and Mooi Indie art, Susie Protschky
Thilly Weissenborn’s luminous touch, Anne Maxwell
Gregor Krause’s Bali and Borneo, Anneke Groeneveld
Gotthard Schuh and the islands of the gods, Annabelle Lacour
The Plates: The 91 photograph plates as produced in the original catelogue with a few additions.
Selected bibliography
Background to collection and catalogue
Contributors
More about Leo Haks
The NGA's Indonesian photography collection is based on the acquisition of Leo Hak's significant photography collection.
The Leo Haks collection can be accessed through the NGA's website - use this link and type in Leo Haks
Other Information and essays:
Click here for the NGA's Garden of the East website
Dr Marcus Bunyan's site, Art Blart, posted about Garden of the East
Walter B Woodbury, Entrepreneur, Inventor, Woodbury in Indonesia, Gael Newton AM
Walter Woodbury, Serimpies, or dancing girls of the Sultano c.1858, Gael Newton AM
Essays by Gael Newton on Asia Pacific, Southeast Asian and Indonesian photography
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To purchase a copy of Garden of The East
This 2014 catalogue is out of print
we know of one source with new copies (in August 2025)
the Asia Bookroom in Canberra
Click on the link above - put Gael Newton in the search
or maybe this search will still work - click here |
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Scott Merrillees publications:
Scott is an independent photo historian focusing on the history of photography in Indonesia. His books:
BALI: Photography 1865-1939 (2025)
FACES OF INDONESIA: 500 Postcards 1900–1945 (2021)
JAKARTA: Portraits of a Capital 1950–1980 (2015).
Greetings from JAKARTA: Postcards of a Capital 1900–1950 (2012, 2013 and 2019, Dutch language 2012 edition)
BATAVIA in Nineteenth Century Photographs (2000, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2010),
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The two photographs:
top of page: Kassian Céphas, Young Javanese woman c 1885
below: Walter B Woodbury, Serimpies, or dancing girls of the Sultano c 1858
