Government House art tour (21 Apr 2026)

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 07:30:00 GMT

Government House art tour

Tuesday 21 April, 5.30–7pm

Government House Tasmania

Her Excellency the Honourable Barbara Baker AC, Governor of Tasmania, and Emeritus Professor Don Chalmers AO, have kindly invited our members to a special reception at Government House. Her Excellency, who is the Patron of the Friends of TMAG, will host the event.

The event will include tours focussing on the art collection, which has had a recent rehang, and colonial furniture, to be led by Dr David Ashley (Ash) Kerr, TMAG Head of Art, and Peter Hughes, TMAG Senior Curator (Decorative Arts).

This is a special fundraising event for the Friends.

Because numbers are strictly limited, this invitation is restricted to Friends members only.

Friends members $50 for the art and furniture tours (all hospitality is provided without cost courtesy of the
Office of the Governor)

Foiling the Fed (20 May 2026)

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:30:00 GMT

Foiling the Fed: Tattersall’s early postal sweepstakes and circumventing federal law

Wednesday 20 May, 10.30am

Central Gallery, TMAG

George Adams founded the Tattersall’s lottery company in 1881 to sell sweepstake tickets on horseraces. But by 1902 he found his postal sweepstakes banned by the newly formed Federal Government. Adams needed a way to receive post to his Hobart-based company, and he needed it fast. In an act of early crowdsourcing he offered a £1000 reward for a scheme to circumvent the 1902 postal ban. TMAG holds a collection of more than 200 letters written to Adams between February and May 1902 suggesting various schemes. Some are clever, some are harebrained, some are deeply self-serving, and all the letters are a window into how people lived in 1902.

Isobel Andrewartha, TMAG Senior Curator of Cultural Heritage, has been digitising, transcribing, and researching this collection of letters to better understand the 1902 ban and George Adams’s response. In this talk she will plot the lay of the land leading up to the ban as well as discuss her research into this ‘divergent scheme’ collection and what it can tell us about life in 1902.

This is a FREE event and you are welcome to bring non-member friends.

Friends of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery upcoming events

Government House art tour (21 Apr 2026)

Foiling the Fed (20 May 2026)