You are warmly invited to join us for the launch of our latest exhibition ‘The Poet Among Statesmen’, with opening remarks by artist David McCubbin.

TUESDAY 21 MAY 2024
Robert Menzies Museum, East Wing, Old Quad
The University of Melbourne
5:30pm – 7:00pm

Of special note to both the Institute and the McCubbin family, we will display a book that Menzies gave his father, James Menzies, entitled ‘The Art of F.McCubbin’ (1916) with the inscription “To Father – August 9th, 1919. With loving birthday greetings!”

David McCubbin, great grandson of the celebrated artist Frederick McCubbin, will give insight into his family’s long association with Sir Robert Menzies. Menzies had a significant role in fostering Australian art into the thirties and forties.

It will include discussion about preeminent artists of the era namely, Daryl Lindsay, and the friendship shared between David’s grandfather Hugh McCubbin and his great uncle Louis McCubbin. He will also share how these individuals had things in common, in particular, their membership at the bohemian Melbourne Savage Club. The Presidency of this Club of which Robert Menzies held for some two decades is now, held by David. The Savage Club, incidentally, celebrates its 130th anniversary this year.

Showcasing its fifth exhibition, our museum will feature treasured items including: Menzies’s own poem ‘De Natura’ (1916) for the Melbourne University Magazine, a first draft by famed poet Bernard O’Dowd and Menzies’s pocket sized version of Macbeth.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Our latest display examines the influences of poetry on Menzies’s beliefs and values, curated by the Institute’s Curatorial Librarian, William Cook and Museum Assistant, Victoria Hronas.

Some fantastic new objects on display in the exhibition include the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun awarded to Menzies in 1973 by the Government of Japan, and Menzies’s Kodak 16mm movie camera.