The Johnston Collection

Last updated

The Johnston Collection
The Kitchen, The Johnston Collection.jpg
The kitchen
The Johnston Collection
Established1990
Location East Melbourne
FounderWilliam Robert Johnston
Website www.johnstoncollection.org

The Johnston Collection is a museum in East Melbourne, Australia. In recent years The Collection has invited creatives from the broader visual arts and design communities to re-interpret the collection through a regular program of re-installation and interventions of the permanent collection and has been the recipient of a number of industry awards.  

Contents

The museum is an "exhibition house" and displays a collection of English Georgian, Regency and Louis XV artworks that were a bequest from William Robert Johnston (1911-1986), a prominent antique dealer, real estate investor and collector, to the people of Victoria.  The Collection is displayed in a regularly changed domestic setting, in his former residence, Fairhall, an historic East Melbourne townhouse.

Fairhall

Fairhall is a two storey brick house constructed in 1860, which now houses The Johnston Collection of fine and decorative art. Constructed in 1860, and originally named Cadzow, the house was purchased by William Johnston in 1952. Johnston occupied the house from 1972 until his death in 1986. Internally the structure of Fairhall remains essentially as Johnston left it. Under his ownership, the house was remodelled to simulate the appearance of a Georgian townhouse. These alterations included changes to the fenestration, the replacement of the front door and the insertion of a semicircular fanlight. The house and its collection were bequeathed to the people of Victoria by Johnston in 1986.

Fairhall was converted into the house museum, and a courtyard garden was designed by John Patrick in the English manner to highlight Johnston’s love of gardening. In accordance with Johnston’s wishes, the Collection is displayed in a domestic setting within Fairhall, without labels, ropes or barriers. All visitors are conducted through the house by volunteer guides. There is an established tradition of re-dressing and decorating Fairhall, initiated by Johnston himself. Johnston often brought his decorating skills to the fore, rearranging the furniture, not only in Fairhall but also his country property Chandpara and his shop Kent Antiques in High St, Armadale, to make little vignettes within the spaces.

Today, the Collection is rearranged for three themed tours per year including the popular Christmas Season re-arrangement. In the past guest curators have been invited to interpret the collection and the space. These have included Lynne Landy and Lady Potter, fashion designer Akira Isogawa, decorator Robert Thomson, and antique dealers Jamie Allpress and Francis Dunn.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Museum and Gardens</span> Culture and arts museum near Bath, England

The American Museum and Gardens is a museum of American art and culture based at Claverton, near Bath, England. Its world-renowned collections of American furniture, quilts and folk art are displayed in a Grade I listed 19th-century house, surrounded by gardens overlooking the valley of the River Avon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sir John Soane's Museum</span> Museum and former home of John Soane

Sir John Soane's Museum is a house museum, located next to Lincoln's Inn Fields in Holborn, London, which was formerly the home of neo-classical architect John Soane. It holds many drawings and architectural models of Soane's projects and a large collection of paintings, sculptures, drawings, and antiquities that he acquired over many years. The museum was established during Soane's own lifetime by a private Act of Parliament in 1833, which took effect on his death in 1837. Soane engaged in this lengthy parliamentary campaign in order to disinherit his son, whom he disliked intensely. The act stipulated that on Soane's death, his house and collections would pass into the care of a board of trustees acting on behalf of the nation, and that they would be preserved as nearly as possible exactly in the state they were at his death. The museum's trustees remained completely independent, relying only on Soane's original endowment, until 1947. Since then, the museum has received an annual Grant-in-Aid from the British Government via the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wallace Collection</span> Museum in London, England

The Wallace Collection is a museum in London occupying Hertford House in Manchester Square, the former townhouse of the Seymour family, Marquesses of Hertford. It is named after Sir Richard Wallace, who built the extensive collection, along with the Marquesses of Hertford, in the 18th and 19th centuries. The collection features fine and decorative arts from the 15th to the 19th centuries with important holdings of French 18th-century paintings, furniture, arms and armour, porcelain and Old Master paintings arranged into 25 galleries. It is open to the public and entry is free.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pickford's House Museum</span>

Pickford's House Museum of Georgian Life and Costume is in Derby, England. It is named after architect Joseph Pickford, who built it as his family home in 1770. It was opened as a museum in 1988. The building is Grade I listed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walters Art Museum</span> Art museum in Baltimore, Maryland, US

Walters Art Museum is a public art museum located in the Mount Vernon section of Baltimore, Maryland. Founded and opened in 1934, it holds collections from the mid-19th century that were amassed substantially by major American art and sculpture collectors, including William Thompson Walters and his son Henry Walters. William Walters began collecting when he moved to Paris as a nominal Confederate loyalist at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, and Henry Walters refined the collection and made arrangements for the construction what ultimately was Walters Art Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smith Street, Melbourne</span> Street in Melbourne, Australia

Smith Street is a street in inner northern Melbourne, running north from the city proper and separating Fitzroy from Collingwood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burrell Collection</span> Art collection in the city of Glasgow, Scotland

The Burrell Collection is a museum in Glasgow, Scotland, managed by Glasgow Museums. It houses the art collection of Sir William Burrell and Constance, Lady Burrell. The museum opened in 1983 and reopened on 29 March 2022 following a major refurbishment. It was announced as the winner of the Art Fund Museum of the Year in July 2023. It is the only non-national museum to be the outright winner twice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ranger's House</span> Georgian mansion next to Greenwich Park

Ranger's House is a medium-sized red brick Georgian mansion in the Palladian style, adjacent to Greenwich Park in the south east of London. It is situated in Blackheath and backs directly onto Greenwich Park. Previously known as Chesterfield House, its current name is associated with the Ranger of Greenwich Park, a royal appointment; the house was the Ranger's official residence for most of the 19th century. It is a Grade I listed building. There is a rose garden behind it, and since 2002 it has housed the Wernher Collection of art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herter Brothers</span> American interior design firm

The firm of Herter Brothers,, was founded by German immigrants Gustave (1830–1898) and Christian Herter (1839–1883) in New York City. It began as a furniture and upholstery shop/warehouse, but after the Civil War became one of the first American firms to provide complete interior decoration services. With their own design office and cabinet-making and upholstery workshops, Herter Brothers could provide every aspect of interior furnishing—including decorative paneling, mantels, wall and ceiling decoration, patterned floors, carpets and draperies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Powel House</span> House museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The Powel House is a historic house museum located at 244 South 3rd Street, between Willings Alley and Spruce Street, in the Society Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Built in 1765 in the Georgian style, and embellished by second owner Samuel Powel (1738–1793), it has been called "the finest Georgian row house in the city." As with other houses of this type, the exterior facade is understated and simple, but the interior was elaborately appointed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warwick Vase</span> Roman vase discovered in Tivoli in 1771

The Warwick Vase is an ancient Roman marble vase with Bacchic ornament that was discovered at Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli about 1771 by Gavin Hamilton, a Scottish painter-antiquarian and art dealer in Rome, and is now in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow in Scotland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RMIT Building 11</span> Education, worship in Victoria, Australia

RMIT Building 11, also informally known as RMIT Spiritual Centre, is a building located at the City campus of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and is part of the Old Melbourne Gaol. The centre is a place for students to practise mindful meditation, which is an activity organised by the RMIT Chaplaincy Service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nantucket Whaling Museum</span> Museum in Nantucket, Massachusetts, United States

The Nantucket Whaling Museum is a museum located in Nantucket, Massachusetts. It is run by the Nantucket Historical Association. The Whaling Museum is the flagship site of the Nantucket Historical Association’s fleet of properties.

Mallett is furniture and works of art agent and dealer based in London and New York. For most of the second half of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century, it occupied a position at the forefront of the English furniture trade, profiting from the growth in interest in the style of British and European 18th and 19th century furniture and works of art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muscarelle Museum of Art</span> Art museum in Williamsburg, Virginia

The Muscarelle Museum of Art is a university museum affiliated with the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. While the Museum only dates to 1983, the university art collection has been in existence since its first gift – a portrait of the physicist Robert Boyle – in 1732. Most early gifts to William & Mary relate to its history or the history of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Gifts of portraiture were the foundation of the early collection and include many First Families of Virginia (FFV) including sitters from the Page, Bolling and Randolph families.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grainger Museum</span> Autobiographical museum in Victoria, Australia

The Grainger Museum is a repository of items documenting the life, career and music of the composer, folklorist, educator and pianist Percy Grainger, located in the grounds of the University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fairfax House</span> Grade I listed building in York, England

Fairfax House is a Georgian townhouse located at No. 27, Castlegate, York, England, near Clifford's Tower and York Castle Museum. It was probably built in the early 1740s for a local merchant and in 1759 it was purchased by Charles Gregory Fairfax, 9th Viscount Fairfax of Emley, who arranged for the interior to be remodelled by John Carr (architect). Fairfax was the widower of heiress Elizabeth Clifford, daughter of Hugh Clifford, 2nd Baron Clifford of Chudleigh: his inheritance from her death enabled him to purchase the house, which he intended as a home for his daughter from his first marriage, Ann Fairfax.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Townhouse (Great Britain)</span> Town or city residence of a member of the British nobility or gentry

In British usage, the term townhouse originally referred to the opulent town or city residence of a member of the nobility or gentry, as opposed to their country seat, generally known as a country house or, colloquially, for the larger ones, stately home. The grandest of the London townhouses were stand-alone buildings, but many were terraced buildings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waller Hugh Paton</span> Scottish landscape artist

Waller Hugh Paton RSA RSW was a Scottish landscape artist in the second half of the 19th century.

William Jamieson was a Canadian treasure and antique dealer and reality TV star. Jamieson was also known as the Headhunter. He was the star of History Channel's Treasure Trader. He was also a world-famous dealer of tribal art, described as having "a taste for the bizarre", and as "Indiana Jones meets Gene Simmons". He was also described as a treasure hunter who "is Indiana Jones, minus the rolling boulders, aliens and savage tribesmen".

References

    37°48′50″S144°59′06″E / 37.81385°S 144.98507°E / -37.81385; 144.98507