Cultural life
News •
The state cannot claim a unique culture that sets it apart from the rest of Australia, though in historical terms writers from New South Wales such as Henry Lawson and A.B. (“Banjo”) Paterson at the end of the 19th century helped to shape and promote the “bush ethos” in Australian identity. Yet the diversity of its geography and landscapes, its spread of settlement and industries, means that the arts and culture of New South Wales reflect a broad span of Australian experience. The fact that in the early 21st century approximately one-fifth of the state’s citizens spoke a language other than English in their homes indicated the increasing diversity of society.
Given its size, its “first city” status, its international orientation, and its periods of reinvention, Sydney has exerted great influence over the cultural life of the state and even the country. It claimed centre stage in events such as the 1988 Bicentennial celebrations and the 2000 Olympic Games and asserted itself to the international arts community through the widely recognized symbol of the Sydney Opera House, designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2007, and the standing of figures such as the New South Wales novelist Patrick White, winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize for Literature. The culture of Sydney is diverse and of great vitality in all areas. In dance, for example, the Sydney Dance Company has been highly innovative since its founding in the late 1970s, and Bangarra Dance Theatre, established in 1989, gained international recognition in drawing from the culture of indigenous Australians. Opera Australia tours extensively from its home base in Sydney. The city is also a centre of film and television production.
Yet the regions of New South Wales—the mountains, plains, coasts, and river valleys—have marked identities of their own, expressed (if increasingly with an eye to the same tourist market) in local heritage, festivals, and specialities. Since 1973, for example, Tamworth has put on an annual festival showcasing the various genres of Australian country music. Orange hosts an annual food festival, Thirroul (a beachside suburb of Wollongong) mounts a yearly seaside and arts festival, and Bermagui, farther south, presents a biennial festival of classical and world music.
Cultural activities in New South Wales are relatively well supported by government funding, although the tendency has been for assistance to flow more to heritage-defined areas (nature parks, reserves, museums, and libraries) and less to the performing arts than in other states. There are strong movements to conserve the natural environment, and several of Australia’s most influential conservation battles have been fought in New South Wales. Such struggles have occurred over the preservation of urban built and recreational environment, including the “Green Bans” instituted in the 1970s to protect Sydney’s historic buildings and green spaces, and protection of forests in the north and south of the state into the 1980s. There are hundreds of national parks and reserves around the state; the largest is Kosciuszko National Park.
The arts
Sydney has exerted considerable influence over Australian painting as the home to some of most prestigious art prizes in Australia: the Archibald (portraiture), Wynne (landscape), Sir John Sulman (genre), and Blake (religious) prizes. The question of whether there exists a “Sydney school”—as contrasted with the rival claims of aesthetics of a “Melbourne school”—has provided a context for debates about main currents in Australian art more generally, especially given Sydney’s more marked modernist, sensualist, decorative, or simply commercial influences.
Significant figures in 20th-century painting associated with the state include Sir William Dobell; Sir Russell Drysdale, whose bush images continued a tradition dating to the Heidelberg school of nationalist Australian landscape painters of the late 19th century; Margaret Preston, whose modernist work took inspiration from the colours and forms of Australia’s natural environments and Aboriginal culture; and Brett Whiteley, who painted more richly urban, erotically charged works. Obsession with landscape is the centre of Australian art, in New South Wales as elsewhere, but there are great contrasts between the eccentric Broken Hill mining landscapes of Pro Hart and the more brooding environmental awareness in similar scenes by Mandy Martin.
In literature, the prizewinning poets Judith Wright and Les Murray encompassed a range of causes in their writing and public influence, including Aboriginal rights, conservation, and cultural politics. Eric Rolls brought a new voice to many genres while engaging with similar themes. Dramatist and screenwriter David Williamson exposed the Sydney middle class and its concerns with style and property, while poet Dorothy Porter probed deeper into crime, sex, and innocence in verse novels and extensive collaborations.
As a result of his commitment to “civic sculpture,” Tom Bass’s work appears on many public buildings in Sydney and beyond. Architects Sydney Ancher, Ken Woolley, and Harry Seilder brought a distinctive fusion of modernism and environmental awareness to their projects—the latter with more frequent moments of controversy. Later, Glenn Murcutt built strongly vernacular themes into this tradition, refining a recognizable idiom. Photographers Max Dupain and David Moore produced enduring images spanning portraiture, cityscapes, the suburbs, and the country. William Yang has combined photojournalism with performance in documenting issues of ethnicity and sexuality and evoking the creative subcultures of Sydney.
Cultural institutions
The state has many theatres and art galleries, the majority of which are located in the capital. In Sydney the Australian Museum focuses on natural history and ethnography, the Powerhouse Museum on the history of technology, and the Museum of Sydney on the early years of colonization. There is a strong movement for historical preservation, served by the private National Trust of Australia (NSW) and by the state Heritage Council, which has sweeping powers to prevent demolition or alteration of buildings identified as having historical value.
The Australia Council, the country’s main arts-funding body, has been based in Sydney since its formation in 1973. Another national cultural flagship in New South Wales is the National Institute of Dramatic Art (1958)—located in the Sydney suburb of Kensington—which has provided the Australian and international entertainment industries with actors, directors, designers, producers, and craftspeople; among its notable graduates are actors Cate Blanchett, Judy Davis, and Mel Gibson and director and screenwriter Baz Luhrmann. The Sydney Conservatorium of Music has produced many leading musicians and has taught, or had on its staff, some of Australia’s most prominent composers, including Richard Meale, Larry Sitsky, Malcolm Williamson, and Peter Sculthorpe.
The Mitchell Library of the State Library of New South Wales houses an extensive collection of Australiana and is a major research library. The Art Gallery of New South Wales holds significant collections of Australian, European, and Asian art. Both these institutions also complement a highly regarded system of regional and local public libraries and galleries. Regional Arts New South Wales seeks to align its programs with the goals of community development, integration, and diversity.
Thematic and local museums are widespread. These range from the Sydney Jewish Museum (1992) and the National Art Glass Collection (1992) of the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, located in that city’s Civic Centre, to the National Motor Racing Museum at Bathurst, which is associated with a major touring car race held annually since 1938 at the nearby Mount Panorama racing circuit.