Two respected figures in Australian art curatorship have won the 2006 National Archives of Australia Ian Maclean Award.

In announcing that Steven Miller, an archivist at the Art Gallery of NSW, and Eileen Chanin, an established art curator, had jointly won the award, the Director-General of the National Archives, Ross Gibbs, said the pair would undertake a groundbreaking project to recover the neglected archival records of Australia’s art schools.

‘Both Steven and Eileen will reclaim this knowledge so that in future we can build a more accurate picture of a segment of Australian art history that defines us as a nation,’ Mr Gibbs said.

Mr Gibbs said the $15,000 Ian Maclean Award was made annually to provide individuals with paid opportunities to conduct research that would benefit the archival profession.

‘There is more to learn about the complex connections that contributed to the formation of Australian artistic style, and this project will uncover records to help researchers piece together a new story of art history from Australia’s past,’ he said.

Although it may be hard to imagine valuable and important documents relating to famous Australian artists not being retained in a systematic way, the lack of formal artistic teaching institutions in the 19th century has contributed to the current dilemma. Early art training in Australia was conducted on a studio basis by individual artists, with some lessons run in mechanics institutes.

The Artisan’s School of Design, founded in Melbourne in 1867, was the first public art school. Amongst the pupils and teachers were Louis Buvelot, Frederick McCubbin and Tom Roberts. Melbourne’s National Gallery School was founded three years later in 1870.

The project will identify and locate valuable records of art schools around Australia and where and how items can be accessed.

The final inventory of relevant archival collections identified from this research will be published online and will be accessible through the National Archives website www.naa.gov.au and a visual arts portal being constructed by the University of NSW. The Art Gallery of NSW will also lend in-kind support to the project.