Volume 7 number 1
April 2012

This issue of reCollections: A Journal of Museums and Collections focuses on nineteenth-century material history, and provides the reflections of two curators as they provide an overview of two very different exhibitions:

  • Andrew Montana shows that the prominent English cabinet-making firm, Smee & Sons, played an important role in furnishing the homes of nineteenth-century Australia
  • Linda Young analyses some gold jewellery in order to explore the digger challenge to the colonial culture of conservative deference in 1850s gold rush Victoria
  • Guy Hansen provides a curatorial overview of an exhibition celebrating the National Museum of Australia's 25th anniversary
  • Adele Chynoweth asks whether the National Museum of Australia could have embraced a different curatorial approach to its exhibition on the Forgotten Australians.

Also featured are reviews of a number of recent and current exhibitions.