CONTEXT NOTE: A randomiseed GOOGLE cum literature search (Huon Pine George Burrows) reveals the information below. Notably no essays, papers or articles by George Burrows come up or indeed any other commentator interrogating the materiality and deep histories attached to Huon Pine. This points to something of a gap in the understandings of what might be understood as ‘endemic’ Tasmanian cultural production from the perspective of the ‘materiality’ of Huon Pine.
http://www.news.com.au/news/huon-pine-meet-the-collector-tours/news-story/ebe800117ac0e1bcac5f55cf98521d6a
- George Burrows Huon Pine Furniture Collection <https://researchdata.ands.org.au/12836/12836> https://researchdata.ands.org.au/12836/12836 <https://www.google.com.au/search?q=George+Harris+tasmania&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjdkra54cHUAhVEn5QKHTowA_QQ_AUIBSgA&biw=1346&bih=595&dpr=0.9#> <https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jjj3wt6qpysJ:https://researchdata.ands.org.au/12836/12836+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au> George Burrows Huon Pine Furniture Collection. Museum Metadata Exchange. Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (Managed by). Viewed: 173 Accessed: 1.
- Huon Pine ... by various authors ... Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, 1977 .... Large format, pp. 24 in card covers; illustrated throughout in b/w with map on inside back cover. A good copy. Sound but some creasing to covers, text clean and little other wear.... The authors are: Ron Crowden, Peter Boyer, Don McKinley, George Burrows, Stephen Walker and Jock Muir. ... Post and packing this book on its own Anywhere in Australia is $3.75 Overseas (airmail):NZ A$5.75 North America A$7.75 Europe A$7.75 ... http://www.quicksales.com.au/ad/huon-pine-tasmanian-museum-and-art-gallery-hobart-1977-ron-crowden-peter-boyer-don-mckinley-george-burrows-stephen-walke/itemid-20736782
- Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery <https://www.facebook.com/tasmuseum/?ref=page_internal&fref=nf> August 12, 2011 <https://www.facebook.com/tasmuseum/posts/10150335400341789> · <https://www.facebook.com/tasmuseum/posts/10150335400341789#> George Burrows is conducting the last collector tour of the Huon Pine Gallery this Sunday from 11am. Come along and enjoy an expert guided lookat these amazing pieces before they are removed before redevelopment work begins.
- Colonial Huon Pine furniture exhibition TMAG is home to one of the most significant collections of Huon pine furniture in the world and this exhibition features selected items from the Museum of Old and New Art State Collection of TMAG. You may remember the excitement in 2006 when the TMAG purchased George Burrows’ Huon Pine Furniture Collection with the help of a generous $740,000 donation from David Walsh, via his private museum MONA. Before then, TMAG only had two minor pieces of pre 1840 Huon Pine furniture. The collection now holds 58 objects, 29 of these pre 1840. George Burrows gives regular tours of the collection, but at our function he will talk more about collecting and about amassing this glorious collection. ... The Friends of the Tasmanian Museum Art Gallery ... http://www.tmag.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/66643/Huon_Pine_130612.pdf
- Transcript Huon Collection Broadcast: 25/08/2006 Reporter: Rachel Fisher AIRLIE WARD: The purchase of a Huon pine chest of drawers more than 30 years ago set Hobart man George Burrows on a quest to furnish his entire home in the unique Tasmanian timber. What ensued has been described as the most outstanding collection of early colonial Huon pine furniture in the world. It remained secret until Mr Burrows decided to sell - prompting the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery to search for a benefactor to keep it in the State. With the deal done, the collection is now in the hands of the Tasmanian people. Rachel Fisher reports.
http://static.tmag.tas.gov.au/decorativeart/objects/misc/P2006.69/index.html
Description
A pair of candlesticks made from Huon pine and the cannon bones of a horse. The base and candle socket are turned Huon pine, the stem is turned bone. The bone stem is friction fitted into turned sockets in the Huon pine components. Parts of the bone surfaces fall below the turned profile and have a rough uneven surface. The undersides of the bases are unvarnished and one bears a long inscription in black ink.
Statement of Significance
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery seeks to build a comprehensive representation of decorative arts made in Tasmania in the colonial period. This includes items made in Tasmania from 1803 to 1901. Many of these objects are similar to contemporaneous objects made in Britain, but are distinguished by an idiosyncratic inflection derived from the colonial context of their production. These cannon bone candlesticks are a highly idiosyncratic example of the turner’s art. While the material is unusual, the quality of the turning suggests the work of an experienced, if not professional, wood turner. They were made to commemorate the loss of a prized race horse.
Inscriptions
Inscribed in black in on the underside: 'Cannon bones of the [horse?] Quiz the Property of Mr W. H. Mence who was killed on the Brighton racecourse whilst running in the Town plate'.
References
The Courier, 7 November 1854, p. 2
THE DEATH OF "QUIZ" ... To the Editor of the Hobart Town Daily Courier.
Sir,-In the columns of your journal of the 3rd last., I find an incorrect report of the unfortunate circumstances connected with the, death of my horse "Quiz," on the Brighton Race Course.. The particulars are as follows, which you will much oblige by giving place to in your columns, for the satisfaction of the public, and to set at rest the erroneous reports now in circulation touching that sad catastrophe.
The accident took place whilst running for the Town Plate, in which race "Sultan," "Cervantes," and "Quiz" started. They had run about three quarters of a mile, when the person who was the cause of that tragical scene galloped across the running ground. " Sultan" was at this time leading the race, " Cervantes" about half a neck behind, "Quiz" about a neck from the quarters of "Cervantes,'' hard held, when the man in question rode his horse betwixt them. The clash was a dreadful one, and but for the sparing hand of a merciful God, we must both have been killed upon the spot, I was the owner and rider of " Quiz," and have sustained great injury in my left hand, by the dislocation of one of the carpal bones, my right arm being very much bruised - as well as losing a valuable horse, whose racing qualities need no comment. I was offered £350 for him prior to the race, and £400 if he won. That race I consider was a gift to him, which altogether makes the loss to me a great one. The person on whose shoulders the blame rests to me is a stranger, and I doubt not suffering greatly for the mad attempt, his thigh being broken in two places. He was hurled four or live yards across the course away from his horse. I was thrown into the air with great violence from the buck of that noble animal, who was caught by a gentleman on the ground. I led him from the fatal spot, injured and exhausted as I was, with the blood gushing through his nostrils; with difficulty he reached his stable, and fell down dead. The cause was the' bursting of a main artery, which may be more fully explained before a higher tribunal.
These are the main and true facts of the melancholy affair, which I consider a loss to me of more than £1000.
I remain, Sir,
Your obedient and humble servant, William Henry Mence.
http://static.tmag.tas.gov.au/decorativeart/objects/furniture/P2006.44/index.html
Centre table
c. 1830
James Shaw (Tasmania, active 1855–9: attributed) ... wood (Huon pine, Australian red cedar, Tasmanian myrtle, Huon pine veneer, unidentified non-native conifer); metal (brass and steel fittings); ceramic (porcelain castors) 74 h x 122 w x 58 d cm Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) State Collection of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, collected by Mr George Burrows 2006.
P2006.44
Provenance
This table is one of a pair. It was purchased by George Burrows from Paul Farmer Antiques (Hobart) in the 1970s. Farmer had acquired it from Ms Oldham, a Hobart book merchant who had owned the pair. No further provenance is known.
Statement of Significance
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery seeks to build a comprehensive representation of decorative arts from the colonial period. This includes items made from 1803 to 1901. This table is an example of fashionable high design, made to display the qualities of the endemic Tasmanian timber species used in its decoration as well as the various skills of the maker(s) such as wood-turning, marquetry and cabinet making. The style is typical of late Georgian and early Victorian design in its use of eclectic historical forms. Possibly made especially for the Great Exhibition held in London in 1851, this table indicates the high level of skill available in the colony, access to recent fashionable designs through publications and a desire to promote the colony and its resources in Britain.
Inscriptions
Inscription in ink on underside of drawer: ‘Made by a man named Shaw / and exhibited at old Govt House / _______ _______ _______ _______ at an exhibition’.
Later inscription in pencil on underside of drawer: ‘Govt House grounds extended from Public Buildings / Franklin Square to c/o [corner] of Argyle & / Macquarie St. Elizabeth St ended / at Macquarie St.’.
Maker unknown (Tasmania)
Wood (Huon pine veneers, Australian red cedar); metal (steel and brass fittings)
Collected by Mr George Burrows. Museum of Old and New Art State Collection of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, presented in 2006
77.5 h x 94.5 w x 94.5 d cm ....P2006.75
Provenance
The centre table was collected by George Burrows in Tasmania and presented to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery by the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in 2006.
Statement of Significance
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery seeks to build a comprehensive representation of Tasmanian colonial decorative arts. This includes items made in Tasmania from 1803 through until 1930. Furniture was an important form of artistic and social expression during the colonial period and a considerable industry developed to exploit the excellent local furniture-making materials, as well as those imported from the colonies of New South Wales and New Zealand.... This table is veneered with Huon pine (a timber endemic to Tasmania) over a substrate of Australian red cedar imported from New South Wales. It is indicative of the high regard for the later as a furniture-making material and of the extensive trade between the colonies in the first half of the nineteenth century. The absence of woodturning, usually associated with tables of this kind, may indicate that the skills of the wood turner were not available at the time and place of manufacture.
http://blogs.abc.net.au/tasmania/2010/09/
Huon horde http://arar12337.staging-iis7.partnerconsole.net/artnotes.asp?aID=11&issueNumber=194
While the collections of the TMAG are extensive, they included very little nineteenth-century huon pine furniture. Now all that has changed, with the donation by the Museum of Old and New Art at Moorilla Estate of fifty-four superb pieces collected over the past thirty years by Hobart couple George Burrows and Isabel Weindorfer. Almost a quarter of the collection dates from before 1840, and the pieces range from a Georgian-style library table with inlaid top, to a Victorian bird’s eye Huon pine chaise. This exceptionally generous donation gives TMAG the most comprehensive collection of huon pine furniture anywhere.
Private museum boom in Tasmania ... https://www.artlink.com.au/articles/3084/artrave/
" The Museum of Old and New Art at Moorilla Estate near Hobart is under construction and due to launch in late 2009. For some years David Walsh, a reclusive art-lover/philanthropist with massive resources has been warehousing an extraordinary collection from around the world with an emphasis on Australia. (In a spirit of sharing, he has already provided the funds for the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery to buy a unique collection of colonial-era huon pine furniture from private collector George Burrows.) The building, budgeted at $55m and likely to exceed this, is by Melbourne architects Fender Katsalidis. Neck and neck with this is another grand private art museum project for Hobart, construction for which starts soon. Owned by wealthy new media collector and patron Penny Clive, the museum will focus exclusively on new media art. Tasmanians can't believe their luck and the government is rubbing its hands in glee.
Book: The Huon Pine Story ... A history of harvest and use of this unique timber. It explains about the Huon Pine gathers who worked up the Gordon River in Tasmania during the 1930’s using horses and rowing boats. This book has been made into a documentary by a Sydney producer.
Huon Pine – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagarostrobos
http://tasmanianamusing.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/george-burrows-tasmaniana-shell_2124.html
https://www.facebook.com/george.burrows.75
