Alfred Drury: The Artist as Curator

This article presents a series of reflections on the experience of curating the exhibition ‘Alfred Drury and the New Sculpture’ in 2013. In particular, it charts the evolution of the design of the exhibition, notably its central tableau based on a photograph of the sculptor Alfred Drury’s studio in 1900. This photograph records a display of Drury’s works for visiting Australian patrons, and could be said to record evidence of the artist curating his own work. The legitimacy of deriving a curatorial approach from this photographic evidence is discussed, along with the broader problem of ‘historicizing’ approaches to curating.