A lighter shade of drab

In this video, as specialist painter Adam John Christian Seur goes about his work, curator Gary Crockett explains the origin of drab - a dull, strangely coloured paint used on the timberwork of Hyde Park Barracks.

Music by Cameron Elliot.

Published on 
Man in blue shirt smiling

Gary Crockett

Former curator

It was the dog-eared world of Rouse Hill House, back in 1991, that inspired Gary Crockett to become a curator. Gary produced exhibitions on convict, immigration and legal history at the Hyde Park Barracks, studied spatial history at the Museum of Sydney, collaborated with artists and tenants at Susannah Place, architects and engineers at Elizabeth Farm, designers at Rose Seidler House, curated Surf City, an ode to Sydney surf culture, along with a string of video, audioguide and interactive museum projects.

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Wentworth Mausoleum, photographer unknown, 1901. Nielsen-Vaucluse Park Trust photographs, 1856–1960s, volume 5

Conservation in action: Wentworth Mausoleum conservation works

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Exterior of Meroogal with Jacaranda Trees in bloom

Conservation in action: Meroogal exterior painting 2025

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