Bold Impressions: A Comparative Analysis of Artist Prints and Print Collecting at the Imperial War Museum and Australian War Memorial

Abstract

This thesis examines the historical development of the artist print collections of the Imperial War Museum and Australian War Memorial, and analyses the relationship of these collections to their institutions. Printmaking is an artistic medium that has historically been used by artists for social critique, and many high quality works of this type are present in the two collections. I argue that in both museums, when developing the print collections, curators were able to acquire beyond the strict interpretation of the museums’ collecting guidelines. As a result of this, the prints have challenged some of the more conservative underlying messages of the museums.

National war museums are ideal for a study of contested histories, particularly those within their own collections, and the IWM and AWM are prominent institutions in this specialist category of museums. My hypothesis is that prints can destabilize the histories that war museums wish to present due to their historical use by artists for a variety of purposes that are somewhat unique to the medium. This is driven by the materiality of the print. This study also analyses how museum structures and internal cultures affected the development of the print collections. In particular, I have tried to answer the questions: What factors influenced the development of the print collections? And how did the professional agendas of curators inform that development? Print collecting flourished at key points in the histories of the institutions, particularly when fine art specialists were in charge of acquisitions. While print collecting broadly reflected the aims of the institutions at different times, on occasion it introduced divergent narratives into the war museums.

This thesis is interdisciplinary in the way it uses a history methodology and museum studies framework. The historical research methods employed include archival research and semi-structured interviews with selected former and current museum staff. My research will add to academic and curatorial knowledge about how collections are formed in large national museums, and analyse the role and significance of two collections that have not previously been thoroughly examined. The thesis places the curator as the creator of the collection, not merely as someone who carries out instructions from management, but who negotiates between the institutional forces, social forces and the nature of the objects, to ultimately shape the collection. Show more