'Scientific genius, star curator, tortured soul. The remarkable life of Allan Riverstone McCulloch.
'Allan Riverstone McCulloch (1885–1925) was a leading scientist and illustrator, and the Australian Museum’s most senior curator and its star exhibition designer, yet history has ignored his many contributions. Was it due to politics at the Australian Museum? McCulloch’s mental health problems? Or because he stole sacred objects from villages when he travelled to Papua New Guinea with acclaimed photographer and cinematographer Frank Hurley?
'This book, by long-time museum employee Brendan Atkins, reveals McCulloch’s scientific genius, artistic talents and his crucial role in the development of the Australian Museum. It also explores his life outside the museum and his demons.' (Publication summary)
'Why was a successful scientist and gifted artist airbrushed out of history?'
'The Australian Museum is starting to develop something of a literary landscape of its own. This is not so much through official publications such as Ronald Strahan’s Rare and Curious Specimens (1979) or the flagship magazine in its various incarnations from Australian Natural History to Explore. Rather, it is through more creative or expansive stories of the weird, wonderful, and personable, from Tim Flannery’s amusingly fictionalised historical recounting of The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish (2014) to James Bradley’s disturbing future fiction The Deep Field (1999). Museum spaces – front and back of house – have an intriguing capacity to inspire and document their own strange and evolving histories.' (Introduction)
'The Australian Museum is starting to develop something of a literary landscape of its own. This is not so much through official publications such as Ronald Strahan’s Rare and Curious Specimens (1979) or the flagship magazine in its various incarnations from Australian Natural History to Explore. Rather, it is through more creative or expansive stories of the weird, wonderful, and personable, from Tim Flannery’s amusingly fictionalised historical recounting of The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish (2014) to James Bradley’s disturbing future fiction The Deep Field (1999). Museum spaces – front and back of house – have an intriguing capacity to inspire and document their own strange and evolving histories.' (Introduction)
'Why was a successful scientist and gifted artist airbrushed out of history?'
