Looking closely
Reading a wall label, line by line
What each line of a museum wall label means, from life dates and medium to height before width and the accession number, and how to read it after you look.
Looking closelyTen slow minutes in front of one painting
The long essayJohn Olsen and how to look at his landscapes
First worksBuying, framing and carrying home a first originalLook longer, hang it well, buy with your eyes open
The Hanging Wall is writing about Australian painting and the people who stand in front of it. The notes cover how to look at a canvas without rushing, how commercial and public galleries work, what to ask before buying a first original work, and how to frame, hang and care for it once it is home.
Alongside the notes sit longer pieces on painters: an essay on John Olsen, short artist notes and a guide to visiting gallery exhibitions in Sydney.
Newly hung
Latest wall notes
Framing and care
What a hidden leak does to the art on your walls
How to spot water behind a wall before it reaches your pictures, what to check on the back of each frame, and what to ask the plumber.
First works
How to bring a painting home from a trip without harming it
What to ask about luggage before a mountain transfer, how to wrap a small painting for the road, and how to let it settle once you are home.
Framing and care
Before the outside painters start, take the pictures down
Exterior painting shakes outside walls and changes the light indoors. Here is what to take down, where to store it and when to rehang.
Framing and care
The hallway switchboard and the pictures that live with it
A simple checklist for clearing, recording and rehanging the art near your electrical panel before an electrician upgrades it.
Living with art
A new bathroom and the pictures that live with it
How to plan a place for art while a bathroom is being redesigned: light, steam, glazing and what to ask for before the walls close.
Artist notes
Painters worth a longer look
- Rhys LeeRhys Lee came to painting through graffiti and graphic design. A plain guide to his strange, quick, colour-led figures and how to spend time with them.
- Guy MaestriFrom a celebrated Archibald portrait to roadside scrub, river floods and a volcanic sea stack: a plain guide to Guy Maestri's painting and how to read it.
- Tamara DeanTamara Dean moved from newspaper photojournalism to staged pictures of people in the natural world. A guide to her series, her methods and how to look.
- Jo BertiniJo Bertini spent a decade walking with camel expeditions in Australia's deserts, then took her sketchbook to India and New Mexico. How to read her paintings.
- Philip HunterPhilip Hunter spent forty years drawing and painting the Wimmera and other Australian terrains. How his layered pictures were made and how to read them.
- Vera MöllerVera Möller trained as a biologist before she became a painter and sculptor. A note on her invented hybrid species, her reef paintings and how to look at them.
- Anthony ListerA note on Anthony Lister's 2013 Sydney show The Beautiful Misery: what was in it, how his street painting fed his canvases, and how to look at work like this.