There is a variety of education programs for History students and teachers using the Gallery’s collection as a core resource.

Discussion tours

Yiribana: tracking diversity

Stage 4

Experience connections to country, culture and community by responding to featured artworks in the Yiribana Gallery’s collection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art. Investigate and discuss contemporary Indigenous practice, narratives and concerns.

Engaging Australia

Stages 4 and 5

Discover the changing images and stories of Australian history evidenced in the Gallery’s Australian and Aboriginal collections. Read and interpret artworks (including photographs) as records of our dynamic history, from contact and Federation and the period during and between the World Wars through to today. Uncover our changing relationship to this country and the rest of the world through artists’ responses over time and place.

Select a focus:

• Aboriginal and Indigenous Peoples, colonisation and contact history
• Australia to 1914
• Australia and World War I
• Australia between the wars
• Australia and World War II
• Changing rights and freedoms: Aboriginal peoples

World War I: the artists’ experience

Stages 5 and 6 Modern History

If you have ever contemplated the role of art and artists during the ‘Great War’ and the post-war period then this is the excursion for you and your History students. This excursion provides a unique opportunity to view and discuss Australian and European paintings, sketches and cartoons, produced during World War I, in the Gallery’s study room.

The bush legend and the Heidelberg school

Stage 6 extension

Interpret the bush legend through iconic artworks from the 1890s by the Heidelberg school of painters. Through three key artworks in the Gallery’s Australian collection – Frederick McCubbin’s On the wallaby track, Tom Roberts’ Golden fleece and Arthur Streeton’s Fire’s on – debate key issues including masculinity, heroism and the individual, and bush and city experiences. Using the artworks as evidence, with support sources, investigate the artists’ social and political agendas, the context of the artworks display in the Gallery, both then and now, and their enduring influence on Australian identity.

Study mornings

Margaret Preston: art and life

Stage 5

Meet Margaret Preston and discover her bold personality and significance to Australian society and culture through her wide achievements as a decorative painter and modern artist, art lecturer and writer, international traveller and colourful Sydney celebrity. Consider her groundbreaking role as an independent woman, artist, opinion maker and champion of Indigenous art and issues in Australia in the 1930s.

Collection connections: History

This information sheet lists some of the artworks in the Gallery’s collection with connections to the History curriculum.

Download Collection connections: history (PDF 120.7 KB)

Resources

Resources linked to the Gallery’s collection that are relevant to the History curriculum include:

Aspects of Australian art
A printed education kit for the Australian collection, available from the Gallery’s online shop

Collection search: Australian art
Search the Gallery’s online collection database for works

Collection search: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art
Search the Gallery’s online collection database for works

Professional development

The Gallery’s professional development program for teachers, linked to our collection and exhibitions, include study sessions and exhibition previews relevant for History teachers. For details, see our section on Professional development.