What’s on
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Chip-carving
Chip-carving is a woodcarving technique in which geometric patterns are incised into timber surfaces in low relief by means of chisels, gouges and parting tools
18 April 2011 - 19 August 2011
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Art nouveau
Art Nouveau is a decorative style easily recognised by its sinuous, curvilinear forms often based on the exaggeration of vines, flowers and foliage
14 March 2012 - 13 July 2012
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Painted decoration at Valetta
Valetta, a modest-sized house in the Sydney suburb of Petersham, was adorned throughout with an extraordinary array of painted decoration
13 August 2012 - 9 November 2012
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Textile time capsule
The underfloor cavities at the Hyde Park Barracks have revealed more than 3000 thousand textile fragments during archaeological excavations
13 August 2012 - 9 November 2012
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Imitation and obsolescence
In Australian home furnishings some things are not what they seem; others are puzzling reminders of another era
4 March 2013 - 5 July 2013
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Eat Your History (in the library)
Three displays in the library complemented the Museum of Sydney exhibition, Eat Your History: a shared table
15 October 2013 - 5 March 2014
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Chinese export watercolours on pith
Watercolours on pith were produced in China for the Western export trade for most of the 19th century
11 March 2014 - 23 July 2014
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
DIY Homes
The period between 1945 and 1960 was the great era of do-it-yourself housing construction in Australia
11 March 2014 - 1 July 2014
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Terracotta for the roof
Until the 1890s terracotta tiles were rarely used on Australian roofs
11 March 2014 - 9 July 2015
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
A garden miscellany
A charming exploration of garden-themed toys, puzzles and illustrations
3 October 2014 - 27 February 2015
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Timber cottages: portable, machine-made, ready-cut
As early as the 1830s, a small number of timber cottages were prefabricated by Australian joinery companies before being transported and erected on site
3 October 2014 - 27 February 2015
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Nature as ornament in applied arts
From the mid-19th century, European pattern books offered instruction in decorative drawing and proposed arrangements of form and colour to be used in applying ornament
3 March 2015 - 9 July 2015
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Papier-mâché for the ceiling
Instead of plaster cornices, ceiling roses and wall or ceiling ornament, why not try papier-mache
5 March 2015 - 9 July 2015
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Painted decoration from Richmond Villa
Richmond Villa is an early Australian colonial house standing in Kent Street, Sydney
10 July 2015 - 25 February 2016
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Kalmar Interiors
Steven Kalmar’s Sydney-based furniture design company Kalmar Interiors, promoted contemporary, affordable furnishings suitable for postwar houses built in Australia’s suburbs
14 July 2015 - 8 July 2016
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Leadlights and Sydney craftsman James Moroney
Leadlight is a decorative glass often used for windows
20 November 2015 - 8 July 2016
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Decorative plastering
Wooden hand tools, also known as ‘small tools’, were used for modelling and finishing work in the plastering trade.
26 August 2016 - 10 November 2016
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Furniture from paper patterns
In 1947 Australian Home Beautiful launched the Patterncraft do-it-yourself furniture-making scheme
26 August 2016 - 10 November 2016
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Prefab chair
It's flat-packed but it’s not an IKEA product; it's Australian made!
26 August 2016 – 1 September 2017
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Caerleon
Caerleon was built in 1885-87 in the Sydney suburb of Bellevue Hill for the Sydney Morning Herald proprietor Charles Burton Fairfax
3 February 2017 - 9 May 2017
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Richard Stringer: Photographer
Richard Stringer, born in Melbourne in 1936, came to photography through training and practise as an architect
3 February 2017 - 9 May 2017
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
The Walford Archive
Genesis of a decorator
23 May 2017 - 1 September 2017
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Interior design training in Sydney in the 1940s
Helen Jean Burgess began a design and interior decoration course in 1943. Her training included rendering domestic and commercial interiors in watercolours
24 October 2017 - 25 February 2018
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Marion Mahony Griffin Presentation Silk
This architectural presentation drawing depicts the combined site plan, street elevations, and sections of two dwellings built in the Sydney suburb of Castlecrag in the 1920s
24 October 2017 - 25 February 2018
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Modern Baroque
In 1950s and 60s Sydney, not all interiors were minimalist or filled with Scandinavian or other international modernist furniture
1 November 2017 - 1 February 2019
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Frank Rowland Chapman's student work
From 1930 to 1932, Frank Rowland Chapman (1911–1984), known as ‘Sonny’, took a cabinet-making course at Sydney Technical College in Ultimo.
21 March 2018 - 29 June 2018
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Sekers Fabrics: ‘Australian Artists Originals’
In January 1963, Sydney-based firm Sekers Fabrics launched ‘Australian Artists Originals’, a range of furnishing textiles, at the ‘Art in décor’ exhibition at the Dominion Art Gallery
22 March 2018 - 29 June 2018
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Bern Emmerichs at The Mint
This ‘pop-up’ exhibition featured a selection of works by Melbourne-based artist Bern Emmerichs
26 July 2018 - 10 August 2018
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Ronaele Jones: an 'invisible designer'
Ronaele Jones (1945–2010) was an Australian designer and colourist of commercially produced printed furnishing textiles and wall coverings
16 August 2018 - 16 November 2018
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
The Magic Lantern at Rouse Hill House
The inventory of furniture, household goods and domestic paraphernalia accumulated over several generations at Rouse Hill House includes a magic lantern and a collection of lantern slides
16 August 2018 - 16 November 2018
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Work in hand
In England in the 18th century the ability to write was a skill associated with the social elite or with young men trained as clerks for careers in commerce
20 November 2018 - 31 March 2019
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
The Ladies' Table
Decorative draperies - Valance
1 April 2019 - 1 July 2019
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Music in the home
By the 1850s Australian compositions and local editions of British and American hits sat alongside imported counterparts in the homes of music makers across the country
12 July 2019 - 5 November 2019
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
The Piano Stool
Playing music on your own musical instruments was a common pastime in the 19th-century Australian home
12 July 2019 - 4 September 2020
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
The Modern Bathroom
Early 20th century baths, basins and toilets were traditionally finished in ‘hygienic’ white, but the new ‘moderne’ style of the 1930s featured colour enamelling of bathroom fixtures and fittings
6 November 2019 - 5 February 2021
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Turanville & Tinagroo
A photographic exploration of Turanville and Tinagroo, two properties near Scone in the Hunter region of NSW
6 November 2019 - 27 March 2020
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Bentwood chairs and Sydney's Central Police Station
Bentwood chairs were a 19th-century furniture success story: made of steam-bent parts, they were mass-produced, durable, lightweight, versatile, and popular throughout the world
23 September 2020 - 30 September 2022
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Hugo Stossel: émigré architect
Architect Hugo Stossel, born in Hungary but trained in Rome and Vienna, arrived in Sydney as a refugee from Nazism in 1939
1 March 2021 - 10 June 2021
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Rug making at home
Rug making at home has long been practised in Australia, but it enjoyed a spike in popularity between the 1920s and the 1950s
1 March 2021 - 30 September 2022
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Lyon, Cottier & Co: 19th Century Decorators
For around fifty years, Lyon, Cottier & Co decorated the finest public buildings, private houses and churches
11 January 2022 - 17 February 2023
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Queering the interior: London, New York, Sydney, 1882–1929
An exploration of the creative worlds and design practices of figures from queer history
21 February - 28 July 2023
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Home in the Hunter
A look at the changing fortunes of pastoral estates of the Hunter Region
1 August - 19 October 2023
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Celebrating the centenary of The Astor, 1923–2023
An exploration of the concept, design and construction of this iconic Sydney landmark
24 October 2023 – 23 February 2024
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Caroline Simpson Library
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Caroline Simpson Library, which was created through an extraordinary cultural gift donated by the children of Caroline Simpson OAM (1930–2003).
27 February 2024 – 12 July 2024
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
A Passion for Postcards: The Postcard Collection of Miss Vera Bell
Our current library display draws from the postcard collection of Miss Vera Bell, a young Sydney woman, and provides a snapshot of an era: the golden age of postcards
16 July – 25 October 2024
Caroline Simpson Library
Past exhibition | Exhibition
A Generous Gift: The John and Phyllis Murphy Collection
Our current library display features an array of colourful and evocative historical wallpapers from the John and Phyllis Murphy Collection
29 October 2024 – 7 March 2025
Caroline Simpson Library