WELCOME TO TEACHERS

We hope you and your students will enjoy this exhibition and its accompanying catalogue and website — which tell the remarkable story of the European discovery and settlement of northern Australia.

In the difficult early years of exploration and settlement, explorers and naval officers, scientists, amateur and professional artists, travellers and settlers created a breathtaking artistic record of people, places and events north of the Tropic of Capricorn.

Blighted Paradise has provided the opportunity to display some of these historic and beautiful paintings, watercolours and drawings, in an exhibition which brings together art, history and science. On display are some 70 paintings and works on paper, including coastal profiles, landscapes, seascapes, botanical and zoological illustrations and pictures of individuals and events.

A number of these works trace the paths of early explorers in northern Australia — from James Cook (1770), to Matthew Flinders (1802), Edmund Kennedy (1848) and Augustus Charles Gregory (1855-56). Other pictures record the establishment of some of the first European settlements and towns in the north, at Port Essington, Somerset and Townsville, as well as the experiences of early settlers living on isolated rural properties in central and northern Queensland.

Artists represented include William Westall, Ferdinand Bauer, Sydney Parkinson, Thomas Baines, Richard Beechey, Oswald Brierly, Isaac Walter Jenner, Philip Parker King, Ellis Rowan, Owen Stanley, Charles Lesueur and Harriet Jane Neville-Rolfe.

Some 21 of the art works, rarely seen in this country, have been borrowed from London's Natural History Museum and Ministry of Defence collection and the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, Le Havre, France. Other works have been lent by the National Library of Australia and Mitchell, Library, Sydney and from the State Libraries of Queensland and South Australia, the National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery and regional collections in Cairns, Mackay and Townsville.

This stunning show, one of the major exhibitions of the Centenary of Federation celebrations, is an event that primary and secondary students should not miss.